Kemble's Cascade (designated Kemble 1) is an asterism located in the constellation

Camelopardalis Camelopardalis is a large but faint constellation of the northern sky representing a giraffe. The constellation was introduced in 1612 or 1613 by Petrus Plancius. Some older astronomy books give Camelopardalus or Camelopardus as alternative fo ...

. It is an apparent straight line of more than 20 colourful 5th to 10th

magnitude Magnitude may refer to: Mathematics *Euclidean vector, a quantity defined by both its magnitude and its direction *Magnitude (mathematics), the relative size of an object *Norm (mathematics), a term for the size or length of a vector *Order of ...

stars over a distance of approximately 3 degrees (five

moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width ...

diameters) of the night sky. It appears to "flow" into the compact

open cluster An open cluster is a type of star cluster made of up to a few thousand stars that were formed from the same giant molecular cloud and have roughly the same age. More than 1,100 open clusters have been discovered within the Milky Way galaxy, and ...

NGC 1502 NGC 1502 is a young open cluster of approximately 60 stars in the constellation Camelopardalis, discovered by William Herschel on November 3, 1787. It has a visual magnitude of 6.0 and thus is dimly visible to the naked eye. This cluster is loca ...

, which can be found at one end.

Discovery

The asterism was named by

Walter Scott Houston Walter Scott Houston (May 30, 1912–December 23, 1993) was an American popularizer of amateur astronomy. He wrote the "Deep-Sky Wonders" column in '' Sky and Telescope'' magazine from 1946 to 1993. Biography Houston was born in Tippecanoe, ...

in honour of Father

Lucian Kemble Lucian of Samosata, '; la, Lucianus Samosatensis ( 125 – after 180) was a Hellenized Syrian satirist, rhetorician and pamphleteer who is best known for his characteristic tongue-in-cheek style, with which he frequently ridiculed superstitio ...

(1922–1999), a

Franciscan , image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg , image_size = 200px , caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans , abbreviation = OFM , predecessor = , ...

friar and

amateur astronomer Amateur astronomy is a hobby where participants enjoy observing or imaging celestial objects in the sky using the unaided eye, binoculars, or telescopes. Even though scientific research may not be their primary goal, some amateur astronomers ...

who wrote a letter to Houston about the asterism, describing it as "a beautiful cascade of faint stars tumbling from the northwest down to the open cluster NGC 1502" that he had discovered while sweeping the sky with a pair of 7×35

binoculars Binoculars or field glasses are two refracting telescopes mounted side-by-side and aligned to point in the same direction, allowing the viewer to use both eyes ( binocular vision) when viewing distant objects. Most binoculars are sized to be hel ...

.Father Lucian Kemble 1922–1999
RASC Calgary Centre – Credits and Special Mentions. Retrieved 2010-01-27 Houston was so impressed that he wrote an article on the asterism that appeared in his ''Deep Sky Wonders'' column in the astronomy magazine ''

Sky & Telescope ''Sky & Telescope'' (''S&T'') is a monthly American magazine covering all aspects of amateur astronomy, including the following: *current events in astronomy and space exploration; *events in the amateur astronomy community; *reviews of astronomic ...

'' in 1980, in which he named it ''Kemble's Cascade''. Father Lucian Kemble was also associated with two other asterisms, ''Kemble 2'' (an asterism in the constellation of Draco that resembles a small version of Cassiopeia) and ''Kemble's Kite'' (an asterism that resembles a kite with a tail which is also in the constellation of Camelopardalis). In addition, an asteroid, '' 78431 Kemble'', was named in his honour.

References

{{reflist, refs= {{cite book , title = Dictionary of Minor Planet Names – (78431) Kemble .44, 0.15, 3.0 , last = Schmadel , first = Lutz D. , publisher = Springer Berlin Heidelberg , page = 231 , date = 2007 , isbn = 978-3-540-00238-3 , doi = 10.1007/978-3-540-34361-5_2754 , chapter = (78431) Kemble [2.44, 0.15, 3.0]

External links

Kemble's Cascade

Astronomy Picture of the Day Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) is a website provided by NASA and Michigan Technological University (MTU). According to the website, "Each day a different image or photograph of our universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written ...

, 2000-08-14
Kemble's Cascade

, 2010-01-28
Kemble 2

Kemble's Kite
Asterisms (astronomy) Camelopardalis (constellation)