Those who are a bit familiar with Latin, Italian, or Spanish words know that the name of this constellation signifies hunting dogs in Latin. They are actually attributed to Boötes, and that these are dogs of the patron of farmers, since it is pretty close to this constellation. Canes Venatici has no particularly bright star. Cor Caroli is the brightest star of Canes Venatici constellation. La Superba (Y CVn) is another star belonging to Canes Venatici and is one of the reddest stars visible to naked eye in the dark sky. It is a semiregular variable star, a feature assigned to giants or supergiants that exhibit considerable periodicity in their light changes. Beta Canum Venaticorum (Chara, Joy) is a main-sequence, yellow-hued star. AM Canum Venaticorum is a cataclysmic variable star and it is very blue.

One of the particularities of Canes Venatici is the existence of a Giant Voidin its vicinity – voids are empty spaces in outer space, devoid of any celestial bodies. It is currently the second-largest void discovered (second to the  Eridanus Supervoid) in size. Eridanus Supervoid is related to the interesting “CMB cold spot” which is much colder than expected based on the regular properties (in particular its temperature distribution) of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). Although a cold spot is usually 70 microK (0.00007 K) colder than the average temperature of the CMB (approximately 2.7 K), it still counts and astronomers are investigating the plausible solutions for this temperature deviation.

The quite famous Whirlpool Galaxy (Messier 51a, NGC 5194, , M51a ) is also located in this constellation. This galaxy is particularly interesting as it is a grand design spiral galaxy and was was identified to be a spiral galaxy. Its core contains an active quasar (Seyfert galaxy). M51 has many star-forming regions and on contains so many worlds within it.