Camelopardalis was one of those rather unnecessary constellations devised (around 1612 in this case) by the Flemish-Dutch cartographer and church minister Petrus Plancius (Pieter Platevoet) alongside Monoceros (see Monoceros). Camelopardalis is the Latin for giraffe, on the assumed basis that it was a fusion of a camel and a leopard. The name looks like a genitive form (and in fact it is the genitive too) and owes its unusual orthography from its transliteration from the Greek καμηλοπάρδαλις. Truth be told, the constellation is a random scattering of very faint stars. The brightest star is Beta Camelopardalis which is magnitude 4.0 and the next brightest star Alpha Camelopardalis is magnitude 4.3 Hence the constellation is practically invisible in Havering. It is sometimes represented by a triangular pennant with a flagpole, perhaps in the hope that it looks vaguely like the head of a giraffe. I prefer to show the four brightest stars as a quadrilateral. The other two stars are variables (BE Camelopardalis and CS Camelopardalis), but their variations in magnitudes are very small.

There are no deep-sky objects of any great interest to the visual observer in Camelopardalis, but there are two nice asterisms, which were both devised by the Canadian Franciscan Friar Father Lucian Kemble. Kemble’s Cascade [1] is a chain of mostly eighth magnitude stars which flow into a “pool” formed by a small relatively dim and sparse star cluster, NGC 1502. Kemble’s Kite [2] on the other side of Camelopardalis (it is technically just over the border in Cassiopeia) looks like a deltoid kite with a tail. 

There are several good doubles in Camelopardalis. The best known (STF 1694 or 32 (Hevelius) Camelopardalis) is close to Ursa Minor and will be covered with that constellation. 11 Camelopardalis [3] is an extremely wide pair of bright stars (magnitude 5. and 6.2), which appear yellowish and bluish. Neighbouring Beta Camelopardalis is a wide optical double with a fairly dim secondary; the stars are yellow and blue. Finally, 1 Camelopardalis [4] on the boundary with Perseus is nicely tight pair of pale yellow and silver-grey stars which are magnitude 5.8 and 6.8.