What is the constellation Coma Berenices?
Eat Berenices It was traditionally considered an asterism, and has become a constellation. Located next to León, it was originally considered the tail of the Lion.
Coma Berenices: Main stars
Coma Berenices contains the Galactic North Pole, at right ascension 12h 51.42m and declination 27° 07.8′ (2000 Julian epoch). This constellation is not particularly bright, and has no stars brighter than those of the fourth magnitude. β Comae Berenices It is the brightest star in the constellation, with a magnitude of 4.26. Intrinsically it is only slightly brighter than our Sun, which gives us an idea of what the Sun would look like from just 27 light-years away.
The second brightest star in Eat Berenices calls Diadem (α Comae Berenices), is of magnitude 4.32. It symbolizes the gem in Berenice’s crown. It is a double star, with two components of almost equal magnitude. It is suspected to be a binary eclipsing. The last fourth magnitude star in Coma Berenices is γ, magnitude 4.36.
Notable deep sky objects from Coma Berenices
Although Eat Berenices It is not an extensive constellation, it contains eight Messier objects. This constellation is rich in galaxies, as it contains the northern part of the Virgo cluster. You can see many globular clusters. These objects are very poorly dimmed by dust because the constellation is not in the direction of the galactic plane. Be that as it may, because of this fact, there are some open clusters (except in the case of the Coma Berenices cluster, which dominates the northern part of the constellation), diffuse nebulae or planetary nebulae.
Coma Berenices Cluster
He Coma Berenices cluster It does not have a Messier or NGC designation, but is in the Melotte catalog of open clusters, where it is designated as Melotte 111 (Miel 111). It is a large, diffuse open cluster of stars of the fifth to tenth magnitude, including many of the constellation’s comets visible to the naked eye. The cluster has the appearance of a huge region, more than 5 degrees, near γ Comae Berenices. Its apparent size is due to the fact that it is relatively close, only 270 light years from Earth.
History and mythology of Coma Berenices
Eat Berenices It was known as an asterism since the times of ancient Greece. Eratosthenes referred to the constellation as Ariadne’s Hair and Coma Berenices. Claudius Ptolemy called him the Flake (of hair); Be that as it may, he did not put it in his list of 48 constellations, considering it a part of Leo. For many years, Eat Berenices It was usually considered as the flake on the tail of Leo, and sometimes as part of Virgo. During the 16th century, some maps of the sky described two new constellations, one of which was Coma Berenices. The creation of the constellation is usually attributed to Tycho Brahelisted as a constellation in his catalog of 1602. It also appears in Johann Bayer’s Uranometria in 1603.
Although this constellation is a modern constellation, it is associated with an ancient legend. It is one of the few constellations (with Scutum) that owe their name to a historical figure, in this case the Queen Bernice II of Egyptwife of Ptolemy III (246 BC – 222 BC), the king with whom Alexandria became an important cultural center.
The fact was that the queen had offered the sacrifice of her hair to the goddess Aphrodite for the king’s return from an expedition. As the king returned safely, the queen fulfilled her offer, cut it off and left it in the temple. The next morning her hair was gone. To appease the furious king and queen (and save the lives of the temple priests) the court astronomer, Conon, announced that the offering had been placed by the goddess in the sky. He pointed to a star cluster that was identified at the time as the Leo Tail, but has since been known as the Leo Tail. Eat Berenices.