Coma Star Cluster Formerly Fluffed Leo the Lion’s Tail

Summary: The Coma Star Cluster formerly fluffed Leo the Lion’s tail as an ivy leaf-shaped hairy asterism of three stars known in ancient Greece as Plokamos.

German Renaissance painter and printmaker Albrecht Dürer’s map of the northern sky, published in 1515, distances the Almagest’s trio of Hair stars from Constellation Leo’s tail and portrays Almagest's author, Claudius Ptolemy (upper right corner): “Imagines Coeli Septentrionales cum Duodecim Imaginibus Zodiaci” (1515), Public Domain, via The Athenaeum

The shimmering Coma Star Cluster formerly fluffed Leo the Lion’s tail as an ivy-leaf-shaped, hairy asterism of three stars known as Plokamos (Ancient Greek: πλόκαμος, plókamos, “tufts of hair, braid”) in ancient Greece.

Greco-Roman astronomer and mathematician Claudius Ptolemy (Greek: Κλαύδιος Πτολεμαῖος, Klaúdios Ptolemaîos; Latin: Claudius Ptolemaeus) associated the asterism (Ancient Greek: ἀστερισμός, asterismós, “group of stars”), or recognizable pattern of stars, with Constellation Leo the Lion in his Mathematical Treatise (Ancient Greek: Μαθηματικὴ Σύνταξις, Mathēmatikē Syntaxis), now known as the Almagest (Arabic: al, “the,” + Ancient Greek: μεγίστη, megiste, "greatest"). Ptolemy (ca. 100-ca. 170 CE) included the asterism in his grouping of the Lion’s unfigured stars, that is, stars around Leo but external to the constellation.

Ptolemy noted the asterism’s placement in the nebula known as Coma Berenices (Berenice’s Hair). The asterism’s association with Queen Berenice II of Egypt (ca. 267-221 BCE) mythologizes the Queen’s shearing of a lock of her long, amber blond hair as a votive offering for the safe return of her husband, King Ptolemy III Euergetes (284-222 BCE), from the Third Syrian War (246-241 BCE). Greek astronomer and mathematician Conon of Samos (ca. 280-ca. 220 BCE), who served as court astronomer for Ptolemy III Euergetes (Ancient Greek: Πτολεμαῖος Εὐεργέτης, Ptolemaĩos Euergétēs "Ptolemy the Benefactor"), is credited with discerning the cloudy shimmer near Constellation Leo as the miraculous transformation of the Queen’s offering into celestial tresses.

By the 16th century, star catalogues and maps began depicting the fan-shaped, starry cascade as a separate constellation. English constellation history biographer Ian Ridpath (born May 1, 1947) and Dutch celestial cartography historian Elly Dekker (born 1943) credit German celestial and geographic cartographer Caspar Vopel (1511-1561) with the first iconographic presentation of Coma Berenices as an individual constellation. Vopel labeled the image as Berenices Crinis (“Berenice’s lock of hair”) in the printed globe that he published in 1536 in Cologne, Germany. Ridpath notes that the inclusion of Coma Berenices in the posthumously published (1602) star catalogue of influential Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (Dec. 14, 1546-Oct. 24, 1601) assured recognition of the new constellation’s status. Brahe itemized 14 stars in the new constellation.

At the International Astronomical Union’s inaugural General Assembly, held in Rome, Italy, in May 1922, Coma Berenices numbered among the 88 constellations officially recognized by recently founded international association. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) was founded July 28, 1919, as an internationally recognized authority for astronomical designations and nomenclature.

The Coma Star Cluster supplies the celestial iconography for Queen Berenice’s hair. The grouping of not-so-densely populated, not-so-tightly gravitationally bound, generally young stars qualifies as an open star cluster.

Ptolemy’s Almagest identified the cluster’s three starry representatives by their longitude and latitude. Ptolemy’s brief description configured each star within the nebulous asterism. Ptolemy’s three Coma Star Cluster stars are now known by designations that indicate their membership in Constellation Coma Berenices.

Gamma Comae Berenices (γ Comae Berenices; Gamma Com, γ Com) appeared first in the Almagest’s itemization of the hairy asterism’s three stars. Ptolemy’s description placed the orange-hued single star in the nebula’s northernmost part (borealissimum convolutionis), toward Leo’s border with Ursa Major the Greater Bear. Gamma Com is also known by as 15 Comae Berenices, its designation according to the system devised by John Flamsteed (Aug. 19, 1646-Dec. 31, 1719), the Royal Households of the United Kingdom’s first Astronomer Royal. Gamma Com shines as the third brightest star in Coma Berenices.

The Almagest located the Hair’s second and third stars in the nebula’s southern region. The star described by Ptolemy as the area’s preceding star (praecedens) is 7 Comae Berenices (7 Com), an orange-reddish single star. The following star in the ivy leaf-shaped figure (sequens de ipsis in figura folii edere) is 23 Comae Berenices (23 Com), a bluish binary star system of two orbiting stars.

Ian Ridpath’s website notes that German Renaissance painter and printmaker Albrecht Dürer (May 21, 1471-April 6, 1528) depicted the Almagest’s triangle of stars on his colored woodcut map of the northern sky, Imagines Coeli Septentrionales cum Duodecim Imaginibus Zodiaci, published in 1515. The trio hovers above Leo’s curled tail and below the Greater Bear’s rear legs as a reminder that Leo’s lion formerly stretched upward. Dürer’s portrait of Claudius Ptolemy, captioned as Ptolemaeus Aegyptus, adorns the sky map’s upper right corner.

The Coma Star Cluster is noticeable to the naked eye. Appreciation of the cluster increases through use of viewing aids, such as binoculars and telescopes. American amateur astronomy popularizer Walter Scott Houston (May 30, 1912-Dec. 23, 1993), who authored Sky and Telescope magazine’s Deep-Sky Wonders column from 1946 until his death, noted the “sprawling” cluster as “one of binocular astronomy’s loveliest sights.” American astronomy lecturer and writer Garrett Putnam Serviss (March 24, 1851-May 25, 1929) found in Round the Year With the Stars (1910) that the “constellation with a romantic history . . . . forms an attraction for an opera-glass” (page 38). In Astronomy With an Opera-Glass (1890), Serviss perceived the romantic cluster as “a curious twinkling, as if gossamers spangled with dew drops were entangled there” (page 24).

The takeaway for the Coma Star Cluster’s former fluffing of Leo the Lion’s tail is that the transformation of the Almagest’s three Hair stars in Constellation Leo into a new constellation in the 16th century, with official acceptance of Constellation Coma Berenices in the early 20th century, traces back to Hellenistic period (323-31 BCE) astronomers’ irresistible reimagining of the shimmering, sprawling open cluster as a contemporary queen’s romantic votive offering.

The Coma Star Cluster, photographed from the International Space Station (ISS) by astronaut Donald R. Pettit, Expedition Six NASA ISS science officer; March 2003: Public Domain, via NASA Human Spaceflight

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

German Renaissance painter and printmaker Albrecht Dürer’s map of the northern sky, published in 1515, distances the Almagest’s trio of Hair stars from Constellation Leo’s tail and portrays Almagest's author, Claudius Ptolemy (upper right corner): “Imagines Coeli Septentrionales cum Duodecim Imaginibus Zodiaci” (1515), Public Domain, via The Athenaeum @ http://www.the-athenaeum.org/art/detail.php?ID=33094

The Coma Star Cluster, photographed from the International Space Station (ISS) by astronaut Donald R. Pettit, Expedition Six NASA ISS science officer; March 2003: Public Domain, via NASA Human Spaceflight @ https://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/crew-6/html/iss006e40537.html

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