Albireo on the rise...

[Palomar]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albireo

The loveliest double, imo. Always enjoy looking at it.

[tdvance]

it's even (just barely) a binocular double--I split it with my ton-weighting 20x80s! Also, the fainter star appears green to me, a contrast thing. As far as I know, the only way a star can appear green is by contrast with a nearby object.

[Tucson_Tim]

Thanks!

I'll check this out in a couple of days when that pesky Blue Moon is out of the way. Cygnus is above the horizon in the NE by about 10:00 PM (local).

[hhEb09'1]

One of my favorites, in my favorite constellation

[Utwo]

Any chance it can be split with 10x50's?

Alternately, I could borrow a small telescope (just over 3"), but I'm not very good with scopes, and I think the collimation is off.

[tdvance]

with 10x50, on a very steady night (practically no twinkling) if you have 20/20 vision, it's possible you can detect that Albireo is two stars. Their airy disks will be merged together--it won't be a clean separation like in 20x80s. Look for an orange star with a speck of green or blue-green next to it.

[Utwo]

So close! My vision is terrible, but I'll leave my glasses on and see what I can see.

Say, how do you pronounce Albireo? al-bi-REE-oh?

[slotdrag]

Al-beer-e-o. Is how i do it.

[Tucson_Tim]

Albireo is now almost directly overhead at 9:00 PM (at my latitude).

Do any of our astrophotographers have pics of this beautiful double?

[Tucson_Tim]

I posted this in the astrophotography section also:

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I have a question about Albireo. This is from Wikipedia:


They had been considered as merely an optical double, not orbiting around a common point as a true binary star system would be. However, in spite of the large distance between them, it has been shown that they are a true binary system.

The brighter, yellow member of the pair, Beta Cygni A, is itself a close binary.


The blue star is smaller than the yellow star. I thought blue stars were always large massive stars and yellow stars were much smaller, like Sol. Am I wrong about blue stars?

[Tucson_Tim]

My question was answered in the Astrophotography section.