Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Thursday, April 21st.  The sun rises at 6:48.  It’ll be up for 13 hours and 45 minutes, setting at 8:34.   The moon, 3 days before last quarter, will rise at 1:10 tomorrow morning.

High in the southeast at 10 p.m. is a tiny and faint constellation of Coma Berenices, or Berenice’s hair.  In it are lots of faint stars arrayed to look like several strands of hair.  The whole group will fit in the field of a pair of binoculars, which will also show many more stars.  The story behind it was that Berenice was the Queen of Egypt, whose husband was away at war.  This was in the days when the Greeks ruled Egypt after Alexander conquered it.  She offered her golden tresses to the gods for the king’s safe return.  The hair, was placed in a temple.  However the offering disappeared when the king returned.  Ever since then the constellation of Coma Berenices has been seen to commemorate the queen’s sacrifice.

* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Coma Berenices via Stellarium

Only one of the three stars that mark the constellation belong to the Coma Berenices star cluster near the top of this image.  The cluster is about 270 light years away, making it one of the closest star clusters to us.

Coma Berenice Finder Chart via Stellarium

Here’s a star chart based on this evening at 10 p.m. on locating Coma Berenices in the southeastern sky.

Note:   Stellarium is a free program.  See the right column for a link.