Astr112 Photography Projects, Spring 2006

NGC1502 (Kemble's Cascade), Asher Mains

The image I have targeted is NGC1502, a medium sized open star cluster of about 45 stars located on one end of Kemble's Cascade. It is located in the constellation Camelopardalis in the Northern sky. Kemble's Cascade is an asterism - a pattern created by unrelated stars that contains 20 stars nearly in a straight line spanning the length of five full moons. Open clusters are physically related groups of stars held together by mutual gravitational attraction. They are believed to originate from large cosmic gas and dust clouds diffuse nebulae in the Milky Way, and to continue to orbit the galaxy through the disk. Kemble's Cascade was discovered by a Saskatchewan, Fransican amateur astronomer, Father Lucian Kemble (1922-1999).

This cluster contains many blue stars suggesting formation of new high mass stars, the brightest being a magnitude of 7.0. The formation of high mass stars is short-lived, burning extremely hot and bright before the star cools and pressure releases causing the star to expand. This cluster also contains the yellow-yellow double star Struve-485. NGC1502 is 3100 light years from earth and the photo targets a space of 19 light years.

References:
http://www.backyard-astro.com/deepsky/bino/01_b.html

http://www.seds.org/messier/open.html

http://www.belmontnc.4dw.net/openclusters.htm

http://sabbe.fragzone.se/KPO/ngc1502.htm