How to find Kemble’s Cascade after the Hunter’s Moon

Where can you find Kemble’s Cascade on Oct. 27, 2026? Late that evening, Camelopardalis sits in the north, east of the Little Dipper and between Cassiopeia and Ursa Major. From 40° N 90° W, moonrise comes at 6:47 P.M. and moonset at 9:20 A.M., and at 10 P.M. the waning gibbous Moon is 95 percent illuminated. Astronomy Magazine’s Sky Today column points observers to the asterism after the October Hunter’s Moon.

From 40° N 90° W, sunrise is 7:24 A.M. and sunset is 6:04 P.M. local time on Oct. 27, 2026. The column’s author, Alison Klesman, serves as senior editor of Astronomy magazine and holds a Ph.D. in astronomy, with research spanning minor planets to supermassive black holes.

• Moonrise: 6:47 P.M.
• Moonset: 9:20 A.M.

Kemble’s Cascade is an informal asterism of more than 20 stars in Camelopardalis, and open cluster NGC 1502 sits at one end. Father Lucian Kemble lends his name to the asterism after describing the pattern in a letter to Walter Scott Houston, an astronomy popularizer.

NGC 1502 lies about 9 degrees south of magnitude 4.6 Gamma Camelopardalis, which acts as the finder star leading to the cluster at one end of the asterism. Magnitude measures how bright a star appears from Earth. Observers can see the cluster in binoculars or any telescope.

To locate it another way, extend the line between Caph, or Beta Cassiopeiae, and Segin, or Epsilon Cassiopeiae, for the same distance again. Observers should look for it on early evenings in November and December using binoculars or a small telescope.

NGC 1502 marks one end of a line of about two dozen stars spanning roughly 2.5 degrees and shining between 7th and 10th magnitude toward the northwest. At its center the asterism holds magnitude 4.9 HIP 18505, extending 1 degree northwest and 1.5 degrees southeast from that star.

The main structure consists of stars between magnitude 7 and 8, with fainter members down to magnitude 10 reinforcing the straight-line appearance. Two orange members mark the northwest leg of the cascade. The column compares the asterism to a waterfall and describes NGC 1502 as spray from the pool at its base.

Binoculars or a finder scope will show all the stars at once, or observers can slide slowly along the line within a telescope’s smaller field of view. A low-power telescope view works best and shows some lovely star colors. Binoculars reveal many more stars in the cluster, ranking it among the easiest and most rewarding beginner targets of autumn.

Binoculars rank among the most useful beginner upgrades and work well for star clusters and lunar details. The guide presents this in a section addressing whether a telescope is needed for October 2026 skywatching.

NGC 1502 is a 6th-magnitude open cluster in Camelopardalis’ southwestern region, stretching about 8 arcminutes across. An arcminute is a unit of angular size. The cluster is a compact group of young stars and serves as the starting point for tracing Kemble’s Cascade.

The cluster shines at magnitude 5.7 and forms the southeast end of the cascade line. Its apparent diameter spans 20 arcminutes, and the cluster lies 2,700 light-years away. A light-year is the distance light travels in one year.

Through a 300mm scope, NGC 1502 appears to contain around 25 stars, two of which are brighter than the rest. The brighter pair are parts of the double star Struve 485 AE.

Although the bright Hunter’s Moon washes out dimmer targets, not all deep-sky objects are out of reach.

On Oct. 27-28, 2026, the Moon passes close to the Pleiades, rising higher in the eastern evening sky. The monthly guide lists this among the best October 2026 night sky events. The Pleiades can be seen without optical equipment.

Around 6 A.M. local daylight time on Oct. 28, 2026, the Moon hangs above the Pleiades in Taurus, roughly 45 degrees high in the west. Astronomy Magazine describes this as the pre-dawn scene following the October 27 evening.

On the morning of Oct. 28, 2026, the Moon passes 5 degrees north of Uranus at 6 A.M. EDT. The column places this conjunction near the Pleiades in Taurus as a separate early-morning event after the evening Kemble’s Cascade session.

Uranus shines at magnitude 5.6, which is technically within naked-eye range, though bright moonlight nearby will wash it out. The column gives this as a caution for observers hoping to spot the ice giant near the Moon on October 28. Uranus lies 5 degrees to the lower left of the Moon while they sink, or about halfway along a line from the Pleiades toward Aldebaran.

Aldebaran, or Alpha Tauri, is magnitude 0.9, the 14th brightest star, with luminosity more than 400 times the Sun’s from roughly 67 light-years away. The column includes these stellar details as a comparison target near the Moon and Pleiades on Oct. 28. Aldebaran’s cool surface temperature produces its reddish color, and observers can compare its orangey-red hue to Mars in the east.