Albireo
Orange bright giant · Beta Cygni
Famous gold-and-blue colour-contrast double star
Marking the head of Cygnus the Swan, Albireo is celebrated as one of the loveliest double stars for small telescopes, pairing a golden K-type bright giant with a hot blue-white companion. Whether the two are truly bound or a chance line-of-sight pairing remains debated.
Illustration generated from temperature, not a photograph
5.2 ☉
mass (the Sun = 1)
1,259 ×
as bright as the Sun
4,358 K
surface · orange
59 R☉
radius (the Sun = 1)
390 ly
from Earth
3.2
apparent magnitude
Visible to the naked eyeno equipment needed · apparent magnitude 3.2
It pours out about 1,259 times the Sun’s light. Its light has been travelling 390 years to reach us, so you see Albireo as it was 390 years ago.
Source · Wikidata
It lives in
Milky Way
Barred spiral galaxy.
Other notable stars in the Milky Way
Eta CarinaeLuminous blue variableAlnilamBlue supergiantVY Canis MajorisRed hypergiantAlnitakHot blue supergiantDenebBlue-white supergiantMintakaHot blue giant multiple star
Stars of similar brightness
PolarisYellow supergiant Cepheid variable1,259 ×AchernarBlue-white main-sequence star1,076 ×AlphardOrange giant971 ×AldebaranOrange giant439 ×RegulusBlue-white main-sequence star341 ×BellatrixHot blue giant star6,397 ×
Worlds in the same direction on the sky→