The cluster contains about 40 brighter stars (between magnitudes 5 and 10) with a common proper motion.

The brighter stars of the cluster make out a distinctive "V" shape as seen when Coma Berenices is rising.

However, in around 240 BC, Ptolemy III renamed it for the Egyptian queen Berenice's legendary sacrifice of her hair.

The Hipparcos satellite and infrared color-magnitude diagram fitting have been used to establish a distance to the cluster's center of approximately 86 parsecs (280 ly).

The open cluster is roughly twice as distant as the Hyades and covers an area of more than 7.5 degrees on the sky.