Albireo (9-15-10)

On some nights of imaging, nothing works. I took the AT8RC out to see what I could do with it. I couldn't do much. I did not have the optics aligned correctly, and I was getting flexure between the guide camera and imager. So it turned out none of my stars were round. I was tired, too, but I wanted to try. Clear nights don't come around often. This was the only shot all night that worked, and this only halfway. Only by shrinking it down could I hide the slightly out of shape stars. I did get one frame of M45, too, but just a single sub---not enough to post.

Albireo is the beak of Cygnus, the Swan. It is a beautiful pair of stars, one that many look for each time they go out in the summer to observe. Albireo is about 380 light years away. The two components may or may not revolve around each other. The brighter star is itself a double star, so if the two components seen here revolve around each other, then Albireo is a triple star system.