Corona Borealis

Origin

Corona Borealis is a small constellation that was used by all ancient Greek astronomers as a wreath crowning a princess or bride. It goes back to the Babylonian “Constellation of Dignity”, an insignum of the god of agriculture.” Corona Borealis is the Northern Crown and its brightest stars form a semicircle, similar to those of Corona Australis, the Southern Crown. Corona Borealis is a northern hemisphere constellation and is visible to anyone north of latitude 50 degrees south.

Bright Stars

The brightest star is Alpha Coronae Borealis, commonly known as Alphecca. Alphecca is a magnitude-2.2 blue-white star that lies about 75 light-years from Earth. Beta Coronae Borealis is a spectroscopic binary star that shines at about magnitude 3.7.

Photo of the constellation Corona Borealis 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