Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Camelopardalis (Cam)  ·  Contains:  HD23523  ·  HD23909  ·  HD23982  ·  HD24116  ·  HD24479  ·  HD24992  ·  HD25090  ·  HD25443  ·  HD25498  ·  HD25638  ·  NGC 1502
Kemble's cascade, Massimo Di Fusco
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Kemble's cascade

Kemble's cascade, Massimo Di Fusco
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Kemble's cascade

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Description

This asterism is one of the most beautiful things that can be observed in the firmament, in my opinion. This is the so-called Kemble's Cascade, named from the homonymous Franciscan friar (and amateur astronomer) Lucian Kemble who observed it on 1980. Also known as Kemble 1, this asterism is located a few degrees away from the Heart and Soul nebulae in the constellation of Camelopardalis and appears as a straight line of about 20 colored stars from fifth to tenth magnitude that seems to flow and fall into the open cluster NGC 1502 (bottom left of my image).
The field of view is not suitable for the focal length of my Konus, which is why I had to make a 2x2 mosaic to capture the entire cascade. I had already photographed the entire asterism a couple of years ago with a refractor at 480mm focal length (link for high resolution: https://astrob.in/xdtits/0/) but I wasn't satisfied due to the poor quality of the stars. Last year I made an attempt for the mosaic project, imaging only the NGC 1502 cluster (link for high resolution: https://astrob.in/u9izfu/0/) and now I have finally completed the work.
A small curiosity: the Kemble "catalogue", unfortunately, is made up of only two asterisms; in addition to Kemble 1 (i.e., Kemble's cascade), there is also Kemble 2 which I photographed on last winter (link for high resolution: https://astrob.in/gz6m9m/0/) and is known as Little Cassiopeia for its W shape which recalls the well-known constellation.

NGC 1502 is a small, very young open cluster, with an age of just 11 million years, of seventh magnitude and composed of about 60 stars. Its brightest component is SZ Camelopardalis, an eclipsing variable located at the center of the cluster. The blue supergiant α-Camelopardalis is also believed to be originally a member of the cluster, but was later ejected from it, becoming a "fugitive" star. The cluster is located at a distance of 3400 light years and is located on the outer edge of the Orion Arm.
NGC 1502 was first observed by William Herschel on November 3, 1787 using an 18.7-inch reflecting telescope and described it as a rather rich and extraordinarily dense cluster of stars, somewhat elongated in shape. His son John Herschel later observed it and included it in his General Catalog of Nebulae and Clusters under number 802.

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