Asterism and Open Cluster in Camelopardalis

Kemble’s Cascade is a string of stars stretching across 2-1/2 degrees of sky and ending with a splash at the small open cluster NGC 1502.  A Canadian amateur astronomer, Lucian J. Kemble, once wrote to Sky & Telescope columnist Walter Scott Houston, describing this asterism as “a beautiful cascade of faint stars.”  In his Deep-Sky Wonders column, Houston called this previously unnoticed asterism“Kemble’s Cascade,” and that is what it has been called ever since.  Because of its large size, this is not a very good target for most telescopes (because their fields of view are too small), but it is a fine object to hunt down with binoculars.

Image details:  10 images, each 60 seconds at ISO 1600, taken with a Canon 400D camera and a Tokina 500 mm lens. 

October 2008