Re: Cherokee #3 Pronto & Cygnus (Part I)

Cherokee wrote:
> 15 constellations bigger then Cygnus! Wow - I can only imagine how big
> some of the bigger ones are.

Yup. Virgo, Hydra, Cetus--many of these are big in part because they
stretch on and on, and in part because they tend to glom areas of the
sky that don't have anything recognizable in them. For instance,
Camelopardalis, which except for a few open clusters and Kemble's
Cascade is a pretty miserable constellation, is larger in terms of its
"official" area than you might expect.

Kemble's Cascade is a nice object for the Pronto, by the way, although
it's not the easiest thing in the world to find. If you feel like
trying for it, here's how I find it: Start with Cassiopeia's W. (That
is, orient yourself mentally so you see it as a W.) The right tip of
the W is Caph, or beta Cas. The left tip is epsilon Cas, also sometimes
known as Navi (named after one of the three doomed astronauts on Apollo
1, I think).

Extend a line from Caph, through Navi, and go on an equal distance. You
will probably not see very much in the sky right there, but if you have
measured your distance and direction accurately, you should find yourself
somewhere in the midst of Kemble's Cascade, a long string of eighth and
ninth magnitude stars. Here's a diagram, with north to the upper left:

! Kemble's Cascade
! / Navi Caph
! ./ * *
! *
! *
! *
! CASSIOPEIA

Kemble's Cascade is indicated by the small row of backslashes. It's
a remarkable asterism, first discovered I think by the amateur astronomer
Lucius Kemble, who I want to say was a priest of some sort (Jesuit?).
It's really quite remarkable.

A similar but smaller asterism is the Coathanger, otherwise known as
Collinder 399, which lies in the constellation of Vulpecula the Wolf.
It isn't very easy to find, either. Start with Albireo, a very nice
double star that you will want to look at, if you haven't already.
South of Albireo is the constellation of Aquila the Eagle, whose lucida
(brightest star) is Altair. If you see Altair as it's rising, it
should be surrounded top and bottom by somewhat dimmer stars, and to
their upper right is another somewhat dimmer star, called zeta Aql.

Draw an imaginary line from Albireo to zeta Aql. Find the midpoint
of that line, and drop down just a bit (that is, toward Altair). That's
where the Coathanger is. Here's a diagram, again with north to the
upper left (that's just by coincidence, it's not a common convention):

! + Albireo (beta Cyg)
!
!
! % Coathanger
!
! + zeta Aql
!
! AQUILAE
! +
! * Altair
! +

The Coathanger will probably appear inverted when you see it, with the
hook on the bottom. Its catalogue name, Collinder 399, might suggest
that it is a physical cluster, but recent measurements seem to indicate
that it is not--that the stars are at greatly varying distances, and
appear to make a striking combination only by chance.

--
Brian Tung <brian@xxxxxxx>
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.txt
.

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