Corona Borealis is a small constellation in the Northern Celestial Hemisphere. It is one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, and remains one of the 88 modern constellations. Its brightest stars form a semicircular arc. Its Latin name, inspired by its shape, means "northern crown". In classical mythology Corona Borealis generally represented the crown given by the god Dionysus to the Cretan princess Ariadne and set by her in the heavens. Other cultures likened the pattern to a circle of elders, an eagle's nest, a bear's den or a smokehole. Ptolemy also listed a southern counterpart, Corona Australis, with a similar pattern.
R Coronae Borealis is a low-mass yellow supergiant star in the constellation of Corona Borealis. It is the prototype of the R Cor Bor class of variable stars, which fade by several magnitudes at irregular intervals. R Coronae Borealis itself normally shines at approximately magnitude 6, just about visible to the naked eye, but at intervals of several months to many years fades to as faint as 15th magnitude. Over successive months it then gradually returns to its normal brightness, giving it the nickname "reverse nova", after the more common type of star which rapidly increases in brightness before fading.
Alpha Coronae Borealis, officially named Alphecca, is an eclipsing binary star in the constellation of Corona Borealis. It is located about 75 light years from the Sun and contains two main sequence stars, one class A and one class G.
Epsilon Aurigae is a multiple star system in the northern constellation of Auriga, the charioteer. It is an unusual eclipsing binary system comprising an F0 supergiant and a companion which is generally accepted to be a huge dark disk orbiting an unknown object, possibly a binary system of two small B-type stars. The distance to the system is still a subject of debate, but data from the Gaia spacecraft puts its distance at around 1,350±300 light years from Earth.
T Coronae Borealis, is a recurring nova in the constellation Corona Borealis. It was first discovered in outburst in 1866 by John Birmingham, although it had been observed earlier as a 10th magnitude star.
T Aurigae was a nova, which lit up in the constellation Auriga in 1891. Thomas David Anderson, an amateur astronomer in Edinburgh, reported that he was "almost certain" he saw the nova at 02:00 UT on 24 January 1892, when it was slightly brighter than χ Aurigae. He mistook the star for 26 Aurigae, although he noted to himself that it seemed brighter than he remembered it being. He saw it twice more during the following week. On 31 January 1892 he realized his mistake, and wrote a note to Ralph Copeland reporting his discovery. Professor Copeland immediately reported the discovery via telegram to William Huggins, who made the first spectroscopic observations of T Aurigae on 2 February 1892, when the star was a magnitude 4.5 object. T Aurigae was the first nova to be observed spectroscopically.
AR Aurigae, also known by its Flamsteed designation 17 Aurigae, is a binary star in the constellation Auriga. Based on parallax measurements made by the Hipparcos spacecraft, it is approximately 461 light-years from Earth.
VV Cephei, also known as HD 208816, is an eclipsing binary star system located in the constellation Cepheus, approximately 5,000 light years from Earth. It is both a B[e] star and shell star.
S Coronae Borealis is a Mira variable star in the constellation Corona Borealis. Its apparent magnitude varies between 5.8 and 14.1, with a period of 360 days—just under a year. Within the constellation, it lies to the west of Theta Coronae Borealis, and around 1 degree southeast of the eclipsing binary star U Coronae Borealis.
IU Aurigae is a triple star system in the constellation Auriga, consisting of an eclipsing binary pair orbiting a third component with a period of 335 years. This system is too faint to be viewed with the naked eye, having a peak apparent visual magnitude of 8.19. The eclipsing pair form a Beta Lyrae-type semidetached binary of two Bp stars with a period of 1.81147435 days. During the primary eclipse, the visual magnitude of the system drops to 8.89, while for the secondary it decreases to 8.74. The third component is a massive object with 17–18 M☉, and may actually be a binary – which would make this a quadruple star system.
LY Aurigae is a multiple star system in the constellation Auriga. It is an eclipsing binary variable star, dropping in brightness by 0.7 magnitudes every 4 days. The system is around a thousand light years away in the Auriga OB1 stellar association.
Delta Coronae Borealis, Latinized from δ Coronae Borealis, is a variable star in the constellation Corona Borealis. Its apparent magnitude varies regularly between apparent magnitude 4.57 and 4.69, and it is around 170 light-years distant.
ζ Coronae Borealis, Latinised as Zeta Coronae Borealis, is the Bayer designation of a double star in the constellation Corona Borealis. The two components are separated by six arc-seconds and share the same Hipparcos catalogue number and Flamsteed designation. Each of the two is also a spectroscopic multiple system, with a total of five stars in the group.
RY Sagittarii is a yellow supergiant and an R Coronae Borealis type variable star in the constellation Sagittarius. Although it ostensibly has the spectrum of a G-type star, it differs markedly from most in that it has almost no hydrogen and much carbon.
V Coronae Australis is a R Coronae Borealis variable (RCB) star in the constellation Corona Australis. These are extremely hydrogen-deficient supergiants thought to have arisen as the result of the merger of two white dwarfs; fewer than 100 have been discovered as of 2012. V Coronae Australis dimmed in brightness from 1994 to 1998.
WX Coronae Australis is an R Coronae Borealis star in the constellation Corona Australis, one of the brightest examples of this extremely rare class of variable star. Despite the rarity, Corona Australis hosts another R CrB star, V Coronae Australis.
BL Telescopii is a multiple star in the constellation Telescopium. An Algol-like eclipsing binary, the star system varies between apparent magnitudes 7.09 and 9.08 in just over 778 days, which is generally too faint to be seen with the unaided eye. This is mainly due to the system being an eclipsing binary. The eclipse itself dims the star by two magnitudes and lasts around 104 days.
Sigma Coronae Borealis is a star system in the constellation of Corona Borealis. It is a quintuple star system containing three sunlike main-sequence stars and two other low-mass stars. The combined visual magnitude is 5.3 and the system lies 74 light years from Earth. σ CrB A is the variable star TZ Coronae Borealis.
RW Aurigae is a young binary system in the constellation of Auriga about 530 light years away, belonging to the Taurus-Auriga association of the Taurus Molecular Cloud. RW Aurigae B was discovered in 1944.
RS Sagittarii is an eclipsing binary star system in the southern constellation of Sagittarius, abbreviated RS Sgr. It is a double-lined spectroscopic binary with an orbital period of 2.416 days, indicating that the components are too close to each other to be individually resolved. The system has a combined apparent visual magnitude of 6.01, which is bright enough to be faintly visible to the naked eye. During the primary eclipse the brightness drops to magnitude 6.97, while the secondary eclipse is of magnitude 6.28. The distance to this system is approximately 1,420 light years based on parallax measurements.
