Coma Berenices (Kesh)
Coma Berenices, resembles the shape of Berenice’s hair, when stars in this constellation are imaginarily connected, as per Indian mythology!
Where should I see…Ursa Major and Leo are the constellations towards west of Coma Berenices
constellation. If you move your eyes towards east, you will see another constellation named Bootes. In the North and South of Coma Berenices, you will find Canes Venatici and Virgo constellations respectively. Coma Berenices is halfway between celestial equator and North Pole, and so is fully part of Northern Hemisphere.
It covers up 386 square degree area of the sky. Area wise it is 42nd largest constellation in the sky.
When and What can I see…We can gaze at this Berenice’s hair shape of Coma Berenices constellation from
August to April, as seen from India.
All you need is your naked eyes other than clear skies to see 70 stars of this constellations, as they are the one which are brighter than the lower limit of our naked eyes (i.e. 6.5 apparent magnitude) to see faintest stars.. The brightest star of this constellation is Beta Comae Berenices.
Constellations are made up of single, binary (apparent and absolute), multiple and variable stars. Out of total 70 stars of different types, here is the list of 20 brightest stars as per their nature:
| Binary / Multiple Star system | Variable Stars | Binary and Variable Stars | Single stars |
| 4 | 4 | Diadem | 7 |
| – | – | 4 | – |
| 4 | 4 | 5 | 7 |
As per Hindi mythology, there are no such known stories for this constellation.
Deep Sky Objects…
Coma Cluster or NGC 4889 || Supergiant Elliptical Galaxy
Coma Cluster of galaxies || NGC 4911 || Radio galaxy
Coma Star Cluster or Melotte 111 || Open Cluster
All the stars that we see naked eyes, all belong to our own, Milky way galaxy (Akash Ganga Tara Vishv). Bright stars can be seen naked eye and faint one through telescope. But the curtain of sky that we see in 2D is actually a huge universe we are talking about, with 3 dimension. There are many nebulous objects visible in every constellations. They differ widely by distances and nature. Like Emission Nebula, Reflecting Nebula, Absorption Nebula, Star Birth Nebula, Supernova Remnants (SNR) and Open Stars cluster which are within the disk of our own Milky Way galaxy. Globular cluster are also found, which are in the halo of our galaxy and some most distant objects like galaxies are also visible through telescope. Such objects are defined as “Deep Sky Objects”.
In this constellation there are 1019 such different types of Deep Sky Objects observed. Below is the list of 20 brightest Deep Sky Objects:
M53 or NGC 5024 || Globular Cluster
M85 or NGC 4394 || Lenticular or elliptical galaxy
M88 or NGC 4501 || Spiral Galaxy
| Galaxy | Open Cluster | Globular Cluster | Nebula | Supernova Remnant | ||
| Naked eye visibility | – | – | – | – | – | |
| Visible through Telescope | —————– 10 | ——————— – | —————- 2 | ———— – | ——————— – | —————– |
| M64 (Black Eye Galaxy) | – | M53 | – | – | ||
| M85 | – | – | – | – | ||
| M100 | – | – | – | – | ||
| M99 (Coma Pinwheel) | – | – | – | – | ||
| M98 | – | – | – | – | ||
| Umbrella Galaxy | – | – | – | – | ||
| 17 | – | 3 | – | – |
M91 or NGC 4548 || Spiral Galaxy
M98 or NGC 4192 || Barred Spiral Galaxy
M99 or NGC 4254 || Spiral Galaxy