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Winter: Orion   Canis Major   Canis Minor   Monoceros   Lepus   Eridanus   Taurus   Auriga   Camelopardalis   Lynx   Gemini   Cancer

Spring: Hydra   Sextans   Crater   Corvus   Leo   Leo Minor   Ursa Major   Ursa Minor   Canes Venatici   Coma Berenices   Virgo   Bootes

Summer: Draco   Corona Borealis   Hercules   Ophiuchus   Serpens   Libra   Scorpius   Sagittarius   Scutum   Aquila   Sagitta   Vulpecula   Lyra   Cygnus

Autumn: Andromeda   Perseus   Pegasus   Cassiopeia   Cephus   Cetus   Lacerta   Delphinus   Equuleus   Capricornus   Aquarius   Pisces   Aries

Southern Skies: Centaurus   Crux   Lupus   Corona Australis   Piscis Australis   Sculptor   Tucana   Fornax   Dorado   Columba   Puppis   Carina   Vela

(alphabetical links)

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CORONA BOREALIS

The Northern Crown

Corona Borealis - Celestial Atlas by Alexander Jamieson - 1822

Legend tells us that the northern crown was originally a beautiful jeweled tiera which belonged to the princess Ariadne, of Crete. Her father, King Minos, kept a ferocious minotaur (half man, half bull) trapped in a labyrinth from which it could not escape. The minotaur had a taste for human flesh, and periodically hapless victims from the subjugated city state of Athens were put into the maze for the minotaur to feed on.

One year the prince of Athens, Theseus, was to be fed to the beast. When the princess Ariadne saw Theseus, she immediately fell in love with him and promised to help him escape, if he would take her away and marry her. Theseus agreed, and Ariadne secretly gave him a spool of thread just before he was put into the maze. Theseus unraveled the thread behind him as he hunted down the minotaur and killed it. Then he followed the thread back out of the maze, and carried Ariadne off across the sea back to Athens.

On their journey they stopped at the island of Dia (Naxos), which was the home of the god Dionysus (Bacchus). For reasons known only to himself, Theseus abandoned Ariadne on the shores of the island, where she proceeded to weep and lament, and waste away in her sorrow. When Dionysus found her, he took her as his wife, and they lived a long and happy life together. Eventually, however, she died, as all mortals do, and to honour her memory, Dionysus removed her crown, and flung it into the sky, where the jewels became stars, to stand as an eternal monument to her love and loyalty.

As far back as the third century B.C., Apollonius Rhodius wrote in his Argonauticae:

Still her sign is seen in heaven,
And midst the glittering symbols of the sky
The starry crown of Ariadne glides.

The brightest star in the constellation retains the original Arabic name of Alphecca, which means "the broken" ring of stars, but is also known as Gemma, which is Latin for jewel. It has a magnitude of 2.23, and is 75 light years away.

The second brightest star is Nusakan, which is Arabic for "two lines" of stars, which has nothing to do with the crown, but refers to a much larger asterism, known to the ancient Arabs as the pasture, which incorporates much of the constellations Hercules and Ophiuchus. It has a magnitude of 3.66 and is 100 light years away.

The star labelled T Coronae Borealis is also called the Blaze Star. It is a class of star known as a variable star, because it periodically changes brightness. Normally it is a tenth magnitude star, too dim to be seen by the naked eye, but on May 12, 1866, it suddenly "blazed" up to magnitude 2, brighter than Alphecca. After only a week it had dimmed back down again. Then, eighty years later, on February 9, 1946, it temporarily blazed up again. So the big question now is whether or not this is a pattern, and will the normally invisible star blaze back up into prominence when another eighty years is up, in 2026. The distances to variable stars is difficult to determine, but T Coronae Borealis appears to be very far away, probably over 2,600 light years.

R Coronae Borealis is an even more mysterious variable star. Instead of brightening, it dims. Its normal magnitude is around 6, right at the edge of naked eye visibility, but at widely irregular intervals it will suddenly dim to around magnitude 12, and stay there for a few days, a month, or even a year or two. It has been observed closely by astronomers for 150 years, since 1858, and so far, the variations in its brightness have been completely irregular. There are no patterns, and there are no explanations. R Coronae Borealis is estimated to be a staggering 5,000 light years away.

Corona Borealis contains two known planetary systems. One of these systems is centered on the naked eye star Rho Coronae Borealis. It is a faint star, with a magnitude of 5.4, located 55 light years from Earth. One planet has been discovered so far orbiting this star. It is slightly larger than Jupiter. For more information on extrasolar planets visit NASA's Planet Quest.

There is one more object of note in Corona Borealis. It is a particularly dense cluster of galaxies, sometimes referred to as a super galaxy. There are over 400 galaxies clustered together in an area the width of the moon, and they are very far away - over a billion light years. An average magnitude of 16.5 places them out of reach of most amateur scopes.

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Alphabetical Links to the Constellations

ANDROMEDA   AQUARIUS   AQUILA   ARIES   AURIGA   BOOTES   CAMELOPARDALIS   CANCER   CANES VENATICI   CANIS MAJOR   CANIS MINOR   CAPRICORNUS   CARINA   CASSIOPEIA   CENTAURUS   CEPHEUS   CETUS   COLUMBA   COMA BERENICES   CORONA AUSTRALIS   CORONA BOREALIS   CORVUS   CRATER   CRUX   CYGNUS   DELPHINUS   DORADO   DRACO   EQUULEUS   ERIDANUS   FORNAX   GEMINI   HERCULES   HYDRA   LACERTA   LEO   LEO MINOR   LEPUS   LIBRA   LUPUS   LYNX   LYRA   MONOCEROS   OPHIUCHUS   ORION   PEGASUS   PERSEUS   PISCES   PISCIS AUSTRALIS   PUPPIS   SAGITTA   SAGITTARIUS   SCORPIUS   SCULPTOR   SCUTUM   SERPENS   SEXTANS   TAURUS   TUCANA   URSA MAJOR   URSA MINOR   VELA   VIRGO   VULPECULA