Girafa
Giraffe (Camelopardalis)
Camelopardalis, the Giraffe, is a large but very faint constellation in the northern sky near the north celestial pole. Despite being the 18th largest constellation, it contains no stars brighter than fourth magnitude. The constellation was created in the early 17th century and represents the exotic giraffe, an animal unfamiliar to Europeans until relatively recently.
📜 Mitologia
Camelopardalis was introduced by Petrus Plancius in 1612 or 1613. Some early sources attempted to give it biblical significance, associating it with the camel that Rebecca rode when she went to marry Isaac (Genesis 24). However, this was likely an attempt to justify a new constellation with religious imagery. The name 'camelopardalis' is the Latin form of the Greek word for giraffe, combining 'kamelos' (camel) and 'pardalis' (leopard), describing an animal with a camel's body and a leopard's spots.
💡 Fatos curiosos
- ✦Camelopardalis is circumpolar for most northern observers, never setting below the horizon
- ✦NGC 1502 is a beautiful open cluster at one end of a chain of stars called 'Kemble's Cascade'
- ✦The dwarf irregular galaxy IC 342 lies in Camelopardalis and would be one of the brightest galaxies if not obscured by Milky Way dust