Stars · Star in Cygnus
Star
Albireo
The swan’s beak — a small telescope splits it into gold and blue, the most famous colour contrast in the sky.
- Constellation
- Cygnus
- Designation
- β¹ Cygni
- Apparent magnitude
- 2.90 · 161st brightest star in the night sky
- Spectral class
- K3II+
- Distance
- 434 light-years
- Position (J2000)
- RA 19h 31m · Dec +27° 58′
An orange bright giant, around 4,800 K, like Arcturus and Aldebaran. About 28× brighter than the faintest star the eye can see. The light you are seeing left around 1592.
Science
Whether the two are a real pair or a chance alignment is still debated; measurements from the Gaia spacecraft suggest they are not bound together.