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 him in the heavens. Other cultures likened the pattern to a circle of elders, an eagle's nest, a bear's den, or even a smokehole. Ptolemy also listed a southern counterpart, Corona Australis, with a similar pattern.
A binary star is a star system consisting of two stars orbiting around their common barycenter. Systems of two or more stars are called multiple star systems. These systems, especially when more distant, often appear to the unaided eye as a single point of light, and are then revealed as multiple by other means. Research over the last two centuries suggests that half or more of visible stars are part of multiple star systems.
In observational astronomy, a double star or visual double is a pair of stars that appear close to each other as viewed from Earth, especially with the aid of optical telescopes.
The stellar atmosphere is the outer region of the volume of a star, lying above the stellar core, radiation zone and convection zone.
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. 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 modern estimates place it approximately 2,000 light years from Earth. Data from the Gaia spacecraft puts its distance at around 1,350±300 light years from Earth.
Beta Coronae Borealis is a binary star in the constellation of Corona Borealis. It appears to the naked eye to be a single star and is the second-brightest star in its constellation with an apparent visual magnitude varying between 3.65 and 3.72. Based on parallax measurements taken during the Hipparcos mission, it is approximately 112 light-years from the Sun.
Alpha Coronae Australis, officially named Meridiana, is the brightest star in the constellation of Corona Australis and is located about 125 light-years from Earth.
Gamma Coronae Australis, is a binary star located in the constellation Corona Australis. The system has a combined apparent visual magnitude of 4.20, making it faintly visible to the naked eye. It is located 56.4 light-years from the Sun, based on its parallax. Gamma Coronae Australis is a member of the Milky Way's thin disk.
Epsilon Coronae Australis, is a star system located in the constellation Corona Australis. Varying in brightness between apparent magnitudes of 4.74 to 5 over 14 hours, it is the brightest W Ursae Majoris variable in the night sky.
RR Caeli is a double star in the constellation Caelum. It is approximately 66 light years from Earth. It was first noted to be a high-proper motion star in 1955 by Jacob Luyten, and given the name LFT 349. Discovered to be an eclipsing binary in 1979, it has a baseline magnitude of 14.36, dimming markedly every 7.2 hours for an interval of around 10 minutes, due to the total eclipse of the brighter star by the fainter one. Its variability in brightness led to its being given the variable star designation RR Caeli in 1984. This star system consists of a red dwarf of spectral type M6 and a white dwarf that orbit each other every seven hours; the former is 18% as massive as the Sun, while the latter has 44% of the Sun's mass. The red dwarf is tidally locked with the white dwarf, meaning it displays the same side to the heavier star. The system is also a post-common-envelope binary, and the red dwarf star is transferring material onto the white dwarf. In approximately 9–20 billion years, RR Caeli will likely become a cataclysmic variable star due to the period's gradual shortening, leading to increasing rates of transfer of hydrogen to the surface of the white dwarf.
V Coronae Australis is a R Coronae Borealis variable 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.
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.
UW Coronae Borealis, also known as MS 1603.6+2600, is a low-mass X-ray binary star system in the constellation Corona Borealis. Astronomer Simon Morris and colleagues discovered the X-ray source in 1990 and were able to match it up with a faint star with an average visual magnitude of 19.4. The system is thought to be made up of a neutron star that has an accretion disk that draws material from its companion, a star less massive than the Sun. The disk is asymmetrical. The variability of the system is complex, with several periods identified: the two components orbit each other every 111 minutes, while there is another period of 112.6 minutes. The beat period of these is 5.5 days, which is thought to represent the precession of the asymmetrical accretion disk around the neutron star.
TY Pyxidis is an eclipsing binary star in the constellation Pyxis. The apparent magnitude ranges from 6.85 to 7.5 over 3.2 days.
S Coronae Australis, is a young binary star system estimated to be around 2 million years old located in the constellation Corona Australis. It is composed of a G-type main sequence star that is about as luminous as and just over twice as massive as the Sun, and a smaller K-type main sequence star that has around 50-60% of the Sun's luminosity and 1.3 times its mass. Both stars are T Tauri stars and both show evidence of having circumstellar disks. The system is around 140 parsecs distant.
RR Centauri is a variable star of apparent magnitude maximum +7.29. It is located in the constellation of Centaurus, approximately 320 light years distant from the solar system.
DY Centauri is a variable star in the constellation Centaurus. From its brightness, it is estimated to be 7000 parsecs (23000 light-years) away from Earth.
