Coma Berenices - Berenice’s Hair
Yet another faint
constellation with no really bright stars, although it has an ancient
legend it was only formed by Tycho Brahe in 1601. According to legend
Queen Berenice of Egypt vowed to cut off her beautiful hair and place
it in the temple of Venus, provided that her husband returned safely
from a war against the Assyrians. When the king returned Bernices
kept her promise and so impressed the gods that they transferred the
flowing locks of her hair to the night sky.
Alpha or Diadem
which means the ‘Braid’ is of magnitude 4.3 which is 58 light
years away, it is a F5 class star somewhat hotter than the Sun.
A line drawn upwards
from alpha points to beta also at magnitude 4.3 and is 30 light years
distant, its a G0 class star slightly hotter than our Sun.
To the right of beta
is gamma slightly fainter at magnitude 4.4, it lies 170 light years
distant and is an orange K3 class giant star cooler than the Sun.
The rest of the
constellations seems blank but if the sky is really clear there
appears a shimmering effect in this part of the sky, this is the
faint glow from the 30 or so galaxies that make up the so called Coma
Cluster of Galaxies, which can of course be seen better with
binoculars and larger telescopes.
All of the main
stars and galaxies in Coma Berenices cannot be seen if there is any
mist or haze around.
I cannot resist
mentioning one galaxy that you would need a telescope to find this is
M64, the Black Eye Galaxy which was discovered by Edward Pigott in
1779 while living at in Frampton House, Llanywit Major in Wales.
Edward Pigott would go onto York to work with the deaf astronomer
John Goodricke and I christened them ‘Fathers of Variable Star
Astronomy’ because of their work on variable stars.
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