Page:The Music of the Spheres.djvu/108





The name of Coma Berenices,—Berenice's Hair,—was derived from an Egyptian fable which dates back as far as the 3rd century B. C. Before this time, the constellation was the tuft on the tail of Leo, the Lion. Thus we find Præsepe, an interesting cluster of stars, just in front of Leo, and Coma Berenices, an equally interesting cluster, just behind him. These two clusters are among the very few clusters that may be located with the unaided eye.

Coma Berenices is most clearly visible on a dark night almost overhead in the early evenings of May. With an effect like 90 minute stars scattered on velvet, these stars are quite unlike anything else in the heavens that is visible without optical aid.

Astronomers have found that many of the stars in this constellation are of a delicate lilac color. These lilac stars are often the companions of other stars, forming such lovely color combinations as orange and lilac, white and lilac and blue and lilac, although these double stars are not easy to locate in this thick sprinkling of stars without the help of a telescope with an equatorial mounting and graduated circles. One wonders what it would be like to have a lilac sun as a source of light, and what would be the psychological reaction on generations of beings brought up under pale lights, mauve mists and shadowy purples. There seems to be a slight difference in even the general characteristics of our earthly folks when those who live in a land of perpetual sunshine are compared with those who live in a city smothered in murky fogs.

The telescope has also discovered in Coma Berenices the rare sight of over 100 nebulæ drawn together in a close group. We say a "close group," but these nebulæ only look crowded to us