Albireo

double star · constellation Cygnus · telescope · color contrast

Two stars, not one. Albireo appears as a single star to the naked eye, but even a small telescope reveals it's actually two stars orbiting together. The brighter one is yellow and the fainter one is blue, creating a stunning color contrast in the sky.

Officially Beta Cygni. Albireo is the official name for the brightest star in the Beta Cygni system, located in the constellation Cygnus the Swan. Despite being called 'beta', it's actually the fifth-brightest star you can see in that constellation.

The yellow star is sneaky. The brighter yellow star of the pair isn't just one star by itself, it's actually a very close trinary system, meaning three stars are packed together there. They're so close that even telescopes can't separate them individually.

Brightness measured in magnitude. Albireo shines at magnitude 3, which means it's bright enough to spot from most places on Earth without a telescope. Once you zoom in with even a low-powered scope, the two contrasting colors pop out beautifully.