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Featured Deep Sky Objects
Albireo

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Albireo (Beta Cygni) is one of the finest color-contrast double stars in the sky, perhaps THE finest. Albireo is easily located, a bright naked eye star at the swan's beak (or foot of the cross).

Even binoculars begin to suggest its double nature, but a telescope quickly reveals two stars, one golden yellow, the other blue-white, separated by 34 arc seconds. These two stars seem to be genuine companions in space, although at 410 light years they must be around 4400 astronomical units apart (1 AU is the Earth-sun distance of 93 million miles). This great separation means that any orbital motion will be very slow - and we haven't detected any in 300 years of looking. Be that as it may, these two stars show off their different characters through their colors - cooler yellow, blazing hot blue - and they make a wonderful target for newbie and experienced astronomers alike.

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Even binoculars begin to suggest its double nature, but a telescope quickly reveals two stars, one golden yellow, the other blue-white, separated by 34 arc seconds. These two stars seem to be genuine companions in space, although at 410 light years they must be around 4400 astronomical units apart (1 AU is the Earth-sun distance of 93 million miles). This great separation means that any orbital motion will be very slow - and we haven't detected any in 300 years of looking. Be that as it may, these two stars show off their different characters through their colors - cooler yellow, blazing hot blue - and they make a wonderful target for newbie and experienced astronomers alike.

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