Monday, November 4, 2013

Coma Berenices

Known as Berenice's Hair in Latin, COMA BERENICES is small constellation with many amazing cosmic wonders. Coma Berenices is east of Boötes, south of Canes Venatici, west of Leo, and north of Virgo. If you know the location of Arcturus, a bright star in the southern portion of Boötes, you will find Coma Berenices to the east, northeast, southeast, and sometimes north depending on how the constellations 'move' across the sky due to Earth's rotation. Celestial objects within the boundaries of Coma Berenices include many galaxies in the south (near Virgo), globular star clusters, and open star clusters; some of them are listed below. Coma Berenices' brightest star, which is relatively faint, is Beta (β) Comae Berenices with an apparent magnitude of 4.3.

Galaxies: Blackeye Galaxy, M88 (NGC 4501), M91, Pinwheel Galaxy (M99 and NGC 4524), M98 (NGC 4192), M100, NGC 4548, and NGC 4881

Star Clusters: Melotte (Mel.) 111 (open cluster) and M53 (NGC 5024)
* M stands for the Messier Catalogue; NGC stands for New General Catalogue
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Blog Background

The background has three Hubble Space Telescope images:

— LH 95 is a star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, Dorado constellation.

— Ant Nebula (also called Menzel 3) is an aptly-named planetary nebula located in the constellation Norma.

— Egg Nebula (also called CL 2688) is a protoplanetary nebula in the constellation Cygnus.