For a small constellation with no stars brighter than 4th magnitude, Coma Berenices, or Berenice's Hair, has a lot to offer: one of the finest nearby open clusters (see S&T: Apr. 2019, p. 43); galaxies galore in the Coma-Virgo Cluster; and an easy-to-find globular cluster, Messier 53. First locate 4.3-magnitude Alpha (a) Comae Berenices, the star also known by the beautiful name of Diadem. Almost exactly 1° to the northeast you should spot 8th-magnitude M53 as a round, fuzzy glow. Like all globular clusters, it's just a blob of fluff, even in my 15x70 binos. As usual with such objects, the romance is in the mind: taking in the combined light of hundreds of thousands of stars that shine back at us across a distance of 58,000 light-years from the diffuse galactic halo of the Milky Way.
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