Albireo

Template: Infobox double star / Maintenance / single coordinate

Albireo is the name for the star β Cygni (Beta Cygni ) in the constellation Cygnus.

On the origin of the name exist in the literature, two interpretations: Thus the name from the Arabic منقار الدجاجة / Minqar ad daǧāǧa could come and as much as "beak of the hen " mean or derived from ancient Greek ornis ( bird).

Albireo is a well known, separable, even in small telescopes double star whose components have a distinct, very beautiful color contrast.

The system consists of an orange ( in the literature: golden ) supergiant of spectral type K3 with an apparent brightness of 3.1 mag. The luminosity is 100 times as high as that of the sun and the diameter of 19.2 times that of the sun. Beta Cygni ( Albireo ) has a companion with a brightness of 5.1 mag and the spectral type B8. Both stars have seen from the Earth at an angular spacing of 34 arc seconds. The attendant takes to the main star set a position angle of 54 degrees.

Albireo is about 390 light years away.