Wednesday, August 21, 2024

Albireo (all night)

The swan's head is marked by a magnitude 3.35 named Albireo, a favorite telescope target at summer star parties because it divides into a coloured double star when viewed in any size of telescope. The two stars show as a lovely sapphire (blue) and topaz (yellow) in color because their photospheres are 11,000 K and 4,400 K, respectively. Measurements from the Gaia Space Telescope indicate that Albireo is likely only a line-of-sight double - a happenstance of geometry from our perspective. The brighter yellow star sits 328 light-years away from us, and the dimmer blue star is 389 light-years
away. They're close enough to one another to be gravitationally bound together - but Gaia found that they are travelling in much different directions - uncommon in stellar siblings. Albireo was given its single name before telescopes were invented and revealed that it was actually a duo. Its
alternate designation is Beta1,2 Cygni, one numeral for each star.

(Data courtesy of Starry Night)
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