I often take pictures of individual stars or binaries. I rarely publish them here; they may not be of much interest to most of you, but I like the effort of preserving star color, size, etc. It is especially interesting to try and nicely resolve doublets and triplets. This can be a real challenge with the RedCat or a stock DSLR camera lens (my only equipment).
Then, just yesterday, Bradley Watson published an image of Betelgeuse (
here). I liked his image very much. It's such an important star. The image was simple and straight to the point. It reminded me that sometimes "less is best". So with that in mind, I decided to publish this image of the Albireo Doublet, a nondescript little binary in Cygnus. Nothing flashy. Nothing interesting...just another 'star picture' for my 'star catalog'. :-)
The doublet is in a dense star field, so actually getting the doublet and teasing it from everything else meant taking short exposures. The doublet is composed of the larger β¹ Cygni, a K2II yellow giant and the smaller β² Cygni, a B8Ve bluish star. Some researchers say there are more little stars lurking around this doublet. I don't know.
As is always my goal, I managed to preserve the star color. I added a star diffraction to the doublet. I don't usually like star diffractions, but it gave the image a little extra pizazz. You will have to view it full size (or full resolution) to actually see the beauty in this binary.
Next time you photograph one of the outstanding DSO in Cygnus, pause a moment and take a look at Beta Cygni (Albireo)... maybe you'll even be tempted to take a picture. :-)
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