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Albireo Photos, Beta Cygni Double Star Photos

One of the Prettiest Double Stars in the Heavens!!!!!
Albireo, also known as Beta Cygni appears to the unaided eye to be a single star of magnitude 3 in the Constellation of Cygnus(The Swan or Northern Cross), but through a telescope, even low magnification views resolve it into a double star. The brighter Golden yellow star (actually itself a very close binary System) makes a striking color contrast with its fainter blue companion star.

The Golden Star Albireo(component A at magnitude 3.3) & the Blue star(component B at magnitude 5.5) system are not a physically connected system, the Blue star is actually twice as far away as the Golden Yellow one, just happens that “line of sight” makes this a pair. Albireo is located about 430 light years from Earth!

Separated by 35 seconds of arc, the two components provide one of the best contrasting double stars in the sky due to their very different colors.

I captured this shot from my backyard observatory in Dayton, Ohio last night on 07-25-2013, at the Prime focus of a 10” diameter telescope & Canon Rebel Xsi DSLR, ISO 400, 1 minute exposure unguided.