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Camelopardalis is a modern constellation created to fill
a vast region of faint stars surrounded by the brighter and more famous
constellations of Ursa Major, Auriga, Perseus, Cassiopeia, and others.
The constellation was probably invented by Petrus Plancius (1552-1622),
a Dutchman who made his name in cartography while working for the Dutch
East India Company. His world maps of 1592 and 1594 became very popular,
while his contribution to the heavenly maps was awarded in 1624 when Camelopardalis
was included in Jakob Bartsch's book on the constellations. (Some
historians believe Bartsch had invented the constellation.) The "camel-leopard"
was so named because the Greeks thought the animal -- a giraffe -- had
the head of a camel and the spots of a leopard. |
