I would think it unlikely that Albireo A and B are a binary system. Their distance of separation is about 9.3 light years or about 2.8 parsecs. It nags at me, but something Sir Isaac said about 1/d^2? However, I have heard it mentioned they are a binary system at many star parties (when I used to go). I could be wrong. That happens a lot. I am a novice. Dave Sent from my iPad On Feb 17, 2013, at 8:51 AM, M Wilson <astro_outwest@yahoo.com> wrote:
Ever since I've been involved with astronomy and a member of one of the local astronomy clubs, I have been told that the name Betelgeuse means "Armpit of the Giant".
According to this account http://www.examiner.com/article/betelgeuse-the-history-of-a-star-name it never meant that at all. It really means "Hand of the Giant".
To quote the next to last paragraph: "Scholars decided that the true origin of the name must be bat al-jauza', the "Armpit of the Giant." Unfortunately for these hard-working scholars, such a name never appeared anywhere in Arabic astronomy. Even more unfortunately, the name is just wrong: the "Armpit of the Giant" should be ibt al-jauza', not the bat al-jauza' they wanted."
Another misconception that I've heard over and over at star parties is that Albireo is a gravitationally bound binary system. In this Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albireo and Burnham's Celestial Handbook, that fact has never been proven. _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy
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