Agenor, son of Poseidon (God of the Sea) and Libya (herself a granddaughter of the river-god, Nile), became King of Phoenicia where he had several sons and one daughter, Europa. Europa was very beautiful and it was not long before she caught the eye of Zeus who carried her off to Crete where she bore him three sons, Minos and two others who need not concern us. Europa married Asterios, the King of Crete, who brought up her sons as his own. Minos married Pasiphae, daughter of Helios, the God of the Sun, who bore him nine children including a son, Androgeos. When Asterios died, Minos claimed the throne although he was not the son of Asterios. He claimed he had the support of the gods and, to prove it, he asked Poseidon to send him a bull promising that he would sacrifice it as soon as it appeared. A magnificent white Bull rose from the sea and Minos won his kingdom. So magnificent was the bull that Minos could not bring himself to kill it and sacrificed another instead. So furious was Poseidon at this broken pledge that he inflicted Pasiphae with an insatiable passion for the bull. Eventually she found a way to mate with the bull and she gave birth to a monster with a human body and the head and horns of a bull. This was the Minotaur. Minos was so appalled by his wife's deed that he had a great maze built, so elaborate that anyone entering it would never find their way out again, and here, in the Labyrinth, the Minotaur was held, and fed on human flesh. Some time after this, Androgeos was killed while in Athens (the exact circumstances are obscure). Minos promptly declared war but the war dragged on for many years. At last Minos prayed to his father for some other way to get revenge. Zeus sent a famine and a plague to Athens and the Athenians were told by the Oracle that the only way to save themselves was to promise Minos anything he might desire. Minos chose a regular tribute of seven youths and seven girls to be sent to Crete to feed the Minotaur. On the third such tribute, one of the youths chosen was Theseus, son of the King of Athens. (It is not clear how the choices were made, by Minos, by lot, or by some other means.) On his arrival in Crete, Minos's daughter, Ariadne, fell in love with Theseus and gave him a large length of twine which Theseus used to trace his journey into the labyrinth. He found and killed the minotaur and found his way out of the labyrinth. Theseus sailed away with Ariadne promising to marry her. However on the way home, Theseus abandoned her on the island of Dia. Ariadne was not alone for long as Dionysos turned up with his retinue, carried her off to Olympos and made her immortal. As a wedding present, he gave her a golden crown crafted by Hephaistos, the God of the Smithy and son of Zeus and Hera. This crown was placed amongst the stars as Corona Borealis, the Northern Crown.
This is a very small constellation, but it seems to have more than its fair share of interesting double stars. The brightest star, Alphekka, is an eclipsing binary with an unusually low range of brightness; the main component is 50 times as bright as the Sun and its companion is only twice as bright as the Sun. η is a close binary of similar stars and there are fainter optical components at 58 and 215 arc-seconds. β is a spectroscopic binary. ζ and σ are easy doubles. Also here is the variable star R Coronae Borealis; this star periodically, but unpredictably, fades from near naked-eye visibility (5.9) to as low as magnitude 15. The only other star within the bowl which is readily seen through binoculars is M which is magnitude 6.6 and by my judgement on my picture was somewhat brighter than R when I took the picture. Is R fading? A single picture with an uncalibrated camera cannot answer this question. (Using Cartes du Ceil and magnitude and position data I have identified R as HR5880, and I believe M is HR5813, but with a quick search of the internet I have failed to confirm this identification independently.)
ρ is a star almost identical to the Sun and is orbited by a planet having about the same mass as Jupiter. It orbits in 39.8 days at a distance of only about 0.2 AU.
This picture was taken at 23:51 UT on 27 May 2010 with my Cannon 1000D camera and is a single exposure of 20 seconds at f/5.6, ISO 1600 and 35 mm focal length. I increased the gamma to 2.0 to bring out the fainter stars.