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mid-evening now, as seen from mid-northern latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, the constellation of the Lion will be high in the southern sky. You'll see the Lion at nightfall, too, though more in the southeast.
• We'll talk more about the star cluster shortly, but first here's how to spot Leo. Two distinctive star patterns make the Lion fairly easy to identify. Leo's brightest star - the sparkling blue-white gem Regulus - marks the bottom of a backward question mark of stars known as The Sickle. If you see a Lion in this pattern of stars, the Sickle outlines the Lion's mane. A triangle of stars highlights the Lion's hindquarters and tail. Denebola, the name of the outermost star in Leo, is an Arabic term meaning the Lion's Tail.Now let's try star-hopping from Leo the Lion to the Coma star cluster. Nowadays, this part of the sky belongs to another constellation, Coma Berenices or Berenice's Hair. As shown on the chart at the top of the page, you can draw a line from the star Regulus through the top star of the triangle (Zosma), and go about twice this distance to locate the cluster. Larry Sessions tells the story of how Leo lost his tale on our April 29 program
• Although the Coma star cluster (Melotte 111) is visible to the unaided eye in a dark country sky, sparkling against the background of the Milky Way, you might need binoculars to see this loose tangle of stars if your skies are beset by light pollution. It is a beautiful sight in a dark sky.
• This is an open star cluster. That means its stars were probably born together from a single cloud of gas and dust in space, and they are still loosely bound by gravity. There are about 100 stars in the Coma star cluster, which lies some 288 light-years distant. In other words, this star cluster lies within our Milky Way galaxy.
(Continued on page 18)
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