Who would have thought it?! – as the clamour of summer 2024 dies away and we make our way into early autumn, the month of September presents us with a great opportunity to pause, retune our dials and take in the first refreshing breath of cooler night air as we stand outside and look up at the stars. September is a great month to do some quality stargazing as you’ll find there are already more evening hours for celestial observing at your disposal while it’s still comfortable to be outside for a considerable of time.
So let’s plunge right in to the inky depths of the heavens to explore a fascinating constellation often overlooked as well as some ‘Super Stars’ of Space! Our less well-known constellation is definitely one worth ‘bagging’ for the keen stargazer because it remains unobtrusively visible all year round!
The one we are going to take a look at is Camelopardalis, the giraffe,
Camelopardalis. Image Credit: Stellarium/Nick Parke
which can be seen looking North in our September night sky. (Turn approximately 90 degrees to the right of where the Sun sets in the evening to face in this direction).
So firstly to explain how Camelopardalis gets passed over by observers… well, it’s perhaps more easily done than you might think as there are simply brighter star patterns around it on all sides that always tend to steal the show! The stars in this patch of sky were first assigned to a constellation when they appeared in the image of a giraffe on the 32.5cm-diameter celestial globe created by the Dutch cartographer, globe-maker, theologian and astronomer – Petrus Plancius (also known as Pieter Platevoet) in 1625. The name Camelopardalis was the Latin derivative of the Greek word for giraffe: ‘kamelos’ (camel) and ‘pardalis’ (leopard), that ‘long-necked camel with spots’.
Celestial globe by Petrus Plancius, 1625, incorporating observations of Tycho Brahe, with brass meridian and hour circles, on wooden stand. Image Credit: Petrus Plancius, Weston D., Jamie Torrance for Science Museum.
The brightest stars in Camelopardalis’ collection have an apparent magnitude of +4.0, which, although technically visible to the unaided eye, would still best be viewed on a clear night and preferably when a full Moon is nowhere to be seen! To give yourself the best chance of finding this illusive star pattern in the heavens, make sure there is at least 1 building between yourself and the nearest set of streetlights or you could even consider taking a short trip to your closest dark sky location. Bear in mind that the constellation of Camelopardalis is a nice simple shape, depicted with a straight line sloping down to the right as the creature’s long neck, which is in turn attached to the top and larger end of a wedge-shaped torso.
But now to take a quick ‘deep space look’ at our night sky, let’s look through the great eye of the Hubble Space Telescope to see something truly spectacular within Camelopardalis’ borders – some ‘Super Stars’ of Space, or to be more precise – Super Star-Clusters! These are located in the dwarf irregular galaxy – NGC 1569, 11 000 000 light years away. The ability to distinguish the individual stellar inhabitants in a distant star city (galaxy) has tended to be far beyond the ability of even the best telescopes, but seeing that galaxy NGC 1569 is, in astronomical terms ‘relatively close by’ and moreover actually moving towards the Milky Way – the HST has been able to perform this incredible feat.
Starburst Galaxy (NGC 1569). Image Credit: NASA, HST
Although in human terms, the distances between stars are enormous – in their early lives, stars are not solitary celestial bodies but are usually born in groups or ‘clusters’, (As they grow older however they gradually move apart into the surrounding galactic environment). NGC 1569 is home to two incredibly spectacular clusters, one with young stars less than 5 million years old – Super Star Cluster A (located in the NW portion of the galaxy) and Super Star Cluster B (close to the galaxy’s centre) which is composed of old red giants and supergiant stars. Where open clusters in Space are usually ‘lightweights’ in terms of total stellar mass compared to those far more densely populated celestial structures – globular clusters, the Super Star Clusters of galaxy NGC 1569 are thought to be so full of stars that their overall mass would equal that of the globular cluster ‘heavyweights’ of the Milky Way galaxy! A bit like the prolific finale of a magnificent firework display in Space – NGC 1569, aptly named a ‘starburst galaxy’ has been popping out stars at no less than a hundred times the rate of star production in our galaxy in the last 100 million years!
From Merak to Mirfak. Image Credit: Stellarium/Nick Parke.
But we are now zooming back out to an unaided naked eye view of our stellar giraffe… An easy way to trace the outline of Camelopardalis in the September night sky is to shoot an imaginary line out through the ‘pointer stars’ Merak and Dubhe at the end of the Big Dipper to Polaris, the North Star. With a wind-screen wiper-like motion, swing left along the long curving tail of the Little Bear, Ursa Minor to the bright star marking his head – Kochab. Then swing back along the tail and shoot straight through Polaris to your first star in the celestial giraffe, Sigma 1694 Camelopardalis, a double star with an apparent magnitude of +5.05, which marks the creature’s head. Out of the corner of your eye on the right, you should see a very bright star – Mirfak, in a neighbouring constellation. Now that you can see where to aim for in terms of your final destination, extend your imaginary line to the right, down the neck of the animal to its tall shoulder. This star is a little brighter than our last with an apparent magnitude of +4.55. This star you’ve arrived at is Gamma Camelopardalis. Finally, run at a steeper angle down the spine of the giraffe to the slightly brighter binary star CS Camelopardalis (magnitude +4.25), that marks the creature’s tail. Taking a different route for a moment, the star Alpha Camelopardalis marks the giraffe’s lower chest (below Gamma Camelopardalis), leading us down to it’s front hoof and the brightest star in this pattern, Beta Camelopardalis with a +4.0 apparent magnitude. But back now to the tail of the giraffe. From here, you can hop straight across interstellar Space from our Circumpolar constellation to that bright star in the neighbouring constellation of Perseus!
The Alpha Persei Cluster. Image Credit: Stellarium/Nick Parke
So our stellar journey looking north has taken us from Merak to Mirfak, from the Great Bear to the Greek hero! Mirfak comes from the Arabic, meaning ‘elbow of the Pleiades’ and is an enormous yellow-white supergiant star 65 times the size of the Sun. Interestingly, with a solar mass 8 times that of the Sun – this star sits right on the edge of the minimum mass needed for a star to go ‘supernova’ at the end of its life, meaning this supergiant is keeping us guessing as to what its finale will be in the future, Nova or Supernova?! Mirfak has an apparent magnitude of +1.8 and is at the heart of the Alpha Persei Cluster (also known as Melotte 20 or Collinder 39), which is located some 570 light years from Earth. In terms of total stellar mass, and compared to the Super Star Clusters of NGC 1569, the Alpha Persei Cluster is a ‘lightweight’ open cluster of stars. That said it’s definitely worth a look as it will be very easy to spot with a small pair of binoculars.
Large Exoplanet (Artist’s impression). Image Credit: Francois, Pixabay.com.
In 2010 it was postulated that Mirfak may have its own exoplanet with a mass 6.6 times that of Jupiter! Exciting as this is, unfortunately the definite existence of this exoplanet ‘Alpha Persei b’ has not as yet been able to be confirmed…
Last but not least, facing south (a little to the right of where the Sun rises in the morning) look out for the spectacular ‘Summer Triangle’. This wonderful pattern – an easy one for all levels of stargazer to find, will continue to put on its bright display well into the autumn. At one time, the bright stars that mark its vertices: Altair, Deneb and Vega were used by the US military for navigation. Along with the Moon, beneath, and Saturn to the left, this will make for a pleasant view after dark.
Saturn, Moon, Summer Triangle. Image Credit: Stellarium/Nick Parke
So some night, why not raise your eyes to the heavens and relax those shoulders as you take in some of the wonders of your September night sky!
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