[2] It was introduced to Western astronomy during the third century BC by Conon of Samos and was further corroborated as a constellation by Gerardus Mercator and Tycho Brahe.

Coma Berenices has been recognized as an asterism since the Hellenistic period[3] (or much earlier, according to some authors), and is the only modern constellation named for an historic figure.

[5] Berenice vowed to sacrifice her long hair as a votive offering if Ptolemy returned safely from battle during the Third Syrian War.

In 1551, Coma Berenices appeared on a celestial globe by Gerardus Mercator with five Latin and Greek names: Cincinnus, caesaries, πλόκαμος, Berenicis crinis and Trica.

[3] Brahe recorded fourteen stars in the constellation; Johannes Hevelius increased its number to twenty-one, and John Flamsteed to forty-three.

[14] With Antinous, Coma Berenices exemplified a trend in astronomy in which globe- and map-makers continued to rely on the ancients for data.

[25] The Boorong people called the constellation Tourt-chinboiong-gherra, and saw it as a small flock of birds drinking rainwater from a puddle in the crotch of a tree.

[27] Coma Berenices is bordered by Boötes to the east, Canes Venatici to the north, Leo to the west and Virgo to the south.

[29] The official constellation boundaries, as set by Belgian astronomer Eugène Delporte in 1930,[b] are defined by a polygon of 12 segments (illustrated in infobox).

21 Comae Berenices (proper name Kissin) is a close binary with nearly equal components and an orbital period of 26 years.

[54] FS Comae Berenices is a semi-regular variable, a red giant with a period of about two months whose magnitude varies between 6.1 and 5.3.

[60] In 2019 scientists at Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences announced the discovery of 28 new variable stars in Coma Berenices' globular cluster NGC 4147.

[64] Due to its great distance from Earth (4.7 billion light-years), it was not visible to the naked eye and was discovered telescopically.

[69] A June 2003 outburst from GO Comae Berenices, an SU Ursae Majoris-type dwarf nova, was photometrically observed.

[72] WASP-56 is a sun-like star of spectral type G6 and apparent magnitude 11.48 with a planet 0.6 the mass of Jupiter that has a period of 4.6 days.

[73] The Coma Star Cluster represents Berenice's sacrificed tresses and as a naked eye object has been known since antiquity, appearing in Ptolemy's Almagest.

[75][76] M53 (NGC 5024) is a globular cluster which was discovered independently by Johann Elert Bode in 1775 and Charles Messier in February 1777; William Herschel was the first to resolve it into stars.

[66] M91 (NGC 4548), a barred spiral galaxy with a bright, diffuse nucleus, is the faintest object in Messier's catalog at magnitude 10.2.

It is unique for its region of intense star formation, creating a ring around its nucleus which was discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope.

The galaxy's prodigious star formation began five million years ago, in a region with a diameter of 1,000 light-years.

[96] NGC 4651, about the size of the Milky Way, has tidal stellar streams gravitationally stripped from a smaller, satellite galaxy.

[100] In 2006 a dwarf galaxy, also named Coma Berenices, was discovered in the constellation from data obtained by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.

It is one of the faintest satellites of the Milky Way - its integrated luminosity is about 3700 times that of the Sun (absolute visible magnitude of about −4.1), which is lower than many globular clusters.

[105] W Comae Berenices (or ON 231), a blazar in the constellation's northwest, was originally designated a variable star and later found to be a BL Lacertae object.

In 1886, Spanish artist Luis Ricardo Falero created a mezzotint print personifying Coma Berenices alongside Virgo and Leo.

[109] In 1892, the Russian poet Afanasy Fet made the constellation the subject of his short poem, composed for the Countess Natalya Sollogub.

[111] American writer and folksinger Richard Fariña mentions Coma Berenices in his 1966 novel Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me, sardonically writing about content typical to upper-level astronomy coursework at Cornell: "It's the advanced courses give you trouble.

The Bolivian poet, Pedro Shimose, makes Coma Berenices the home address of his "Señorita NGC 4565" in his poem "Carta a una estrella que vive en otra constelación" ("Letter to a star who lives in another constellation"), included in his 1967 collection, "Sardonia".

[112] "[113] The Irish poet W. B. Yeats, in his poem "Her Dream", refers to "Berenice's burning hair" being "nailed upon the night".

In 1999 Irish artist Alice Maher made a series of four oversize drawings, entitled Coma Berenices, of entwining black hair coils.