Camelopardalis
What is Camelopardalis?
Constellations· Winter evenings, circumpolar (N) · between Polaris and Capella. The giraffe occupying the wide, empty sky between Polaris and Capella. Plancius created it in 1612; it has not a single star brighter than 4th magnitude. Binocular treats are "Kemble's Cascade" and the spiral galaxy NGC 2403. Zoom in south of Polaris in the Sky view.
📍 Visible from where you are right now — computed in your browser
bearing · altitude · rise time · best time tonight
Where Camelopardalis is in your sky right now: https://nowsky.org/solar/sky?sel=con:Camelopardalis — location and time set automatically, no login.
Stars of the figure
| Star | Magnitude |
|---|---|
| Beta Camelopardalis | 4.0 |
| Alpha Camelopardalis | 4.3 |
The 2 brightest of the 2 stars used in the figure (1 lines). Lower magnitude means brighter.
Constellation basics
| Season | circumpolar (N), best on winter evenings |
|---|---|
| Brightest star | Beta Camelopardalis (4.0) |
| How to find | the blank sky between Polaris, Capella and Perseus |
| Area rank | 88 |
Figures are representative approximations. Source: compiled from NASA and IAU public data.
Frequently asked
- When can I see Camelopardalis?
- circumpolar (N), best on winter evenings.
- How do I find Camelopardalis?
- the blank sky between Polaris, Capella and Perseus.
- What is the brightest star in Camelopardalis?
- Beta Camelopardalis, magnitude 4.
- Where is Camelopardalis in the sky right now?
- Open the sky view for your location and time and it shows the position in the sky right now.
May 2014 — the Camelopardalid shower that was forecast
On 24 May 2014 Earth crossed for the first time the streams of dust that comet 209P/LINEAR had laid down in the 1800s. With its radiant in Camelopardalis the event was called the Camelopardalids, and it had been forecast by calculation years in advance, with talk of a possible storm of hundreds an hour. In the end it produced 10 to 20 an hour, but records note many slow, bright meteors that made it memorable.
The shower is a rare case of a new meteor shower predicted by calculation and then verified. The comet's orbit and the paths of dust ejected at past returns were simulated to compute when Earth would pass through them, and the observations showed the comet had been far less active in the past than it is now. The empty sky of Camelopardalis beside Polaris thus lent its name to a shower just once.
The constellation in depth
Camelopardalis was created by Petrus Plancius in 1612 in the blank sky near the pole and cemented by Jakob Bartsch's star chart of 1624. The Latin name means "camel-leopard", reflecting the Roman idea of the giraffe as a camel with a leopard's spots. Ranking 18th in area, it is big — but with no bright stars it stayed empty on maps for centuries.
Even Beta, the brightest star, is only magnitude 4.0, and Alpha is 4.3 — yet Alpha Camelopardalis is a blue supergiant 6,000 light-years away shining 600,000 times brighter than the Sun. The amateur favourite is Kemble's Cascade, a chance line of some twenty stars tumbling across 2.5 degrees with the open cluster NGC 1502 at its foot. The spirals NGC 2403 and IC 342 suit small telescopes.
From Seoul it never sets and rides highest on December–February evenings. Look for the empty region between Polaris and Capella. Connecting the dots is hard, so switch on constellation lines in the Sky view to learn the area, then sweep for Kemble's Cascade with binoculars.
Related
Figures are representative approximations. Simulated positions use J2000 mean elements.