BellaOnline Forums Education Astronomy The Starry Crowns – Corona Borealis

There are two crowns in the sky, the northern and southern ones. Classically, Corona Borealis represents the crown of Ariadne, abandoned heroine of the tale of the Minotaur and the labyrinth. More prosaically, in Australian aboriginal astronomy, it's Womera – the Boomerang, which it resembles.

The Starry Crowns – Corona Borealis

Here's how Corona Borealis was represented in the 19th-century Urania's Mirror. It's a small constellation, dwarfed by its neighbor Hercules. Cerebrus is also there. This constellation, which represented a 3-headed dog that guarded the realm of Hades, is now obsolete. (And no, I don't know why it's represented here by a 3-headed snake. Maybe it was easier to draw.)

I did not know there was such a thing as "melodic death metal", but apparently Cadacross was such a thing. It was a Finnish band formed in 1997, but doesn't seem to have been around for at least a decade. What has drawn my attention to it is that they had an album called Corona Borealis. Lyrics by Sami Aarnio are on the apocalyptic side. I guess that's the death part. The melodic part isn't so obvious to this old fuddy duddy.

If you have a nice dark sky, you should be able to find the lovely little constellation Corona Borealis, the Northern Crown.

It's between the two bright stars Vega and Arcturus. Deborah Byrd writes