Coma Berenices
Origin
Coma Berenices is an ancient asterism that is one of the 88 IAU constellations. Its name means ‘Berenices hair’ in Latin and refers to Queen Berenices II of Egypt who sacrificed her hair as a votive offering. Coma Berenices is the only constellation named after a historic figure. Coma Berenices is located in the northern sky and is considered a spring/summer constellation.
Bright Stars
Coma Berenices is a faint constellation with no stars brighter than 4th magnitude. Beta Comae Berenices is the brightest star, shining at magnitude 4.2, and is similar to our Sun; it is located about 30 light-years away. Alpha Comae Berenices is a binary star system that is nearly as bright, at magnitude 4.3, and is located about 58 light-years away. Each of the two stars is a little larger and hotter than our Sun. Gamma Comae Berenices is an orange star shining at magnitude 4.36 and lying about 167 light-years away.
Photo of the constellation Coma Berenices produced by NOIRLab in collaboration with Eckhard Slawik, a German astrophotographer.
The annotations are from a standardized set of 88 western IAU constellations and stick figures from Sky & Telescope. Please find here a non-annotated version of the image.
Credit: E. Slawik/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M. Zamani
Latin name
English name
Coma Berenices
Pronunciation
CO-ma bare-uh-NYE-sees
Abbreviation
Com
Notable Objects
24 Comae Berenices is a lovely double star with a nice blue and orange pair exhibiting a nice color contrast in small telescopes. It is sometimes referred to as the Spring Alberio. Messier 53 is a 7th-magnitude globular cluster about 56,000 light-years from Earth. About one degree from Messier 53 is NGC 5063, a 10th-magnitude globular cluster that is very metal poor and is one of the smallest, containing only about 16,000 times the mass of our Sun.
Coma Berenices contains several Messier galaxies that belong to the Virgo Gluster. Messier 85 is a 9th-magnitude elliptical or lenticular galaxy. Messier 88 is a spiral galaxy shining at magnitude 9.6. Messier 91 is a barred spiral galaxy. At magnitude 10.2, Messier 91 is the faintest Messier object. Messier 98 is a nearly edge-on spiral galaxy that shines at magnitude 10.2. Messier 99 is a 10th-magnitude spiral galaxy seen face on. Messier 100 is a 9th-magnitude face-on spiral galaxy.
