Look Up in the Sky...It’s a Bird

Look up after sunset during summer months to find Cygnus! Along the swan’s neck find the band of our Milky Way Galaxy. Use a telescope to resolve the colorful stars of Albireo or search out the open cluster of stars in Messier 29. Image created with assistance from Stellarium: stellarium.org

While the black hole Cygnus x-1 is invisible with even the most powerful Optical telescope, in X-ray, it shines brightly. On the left is the optical view of that region with the location of Cygnus x-1 shown in the red box as taken by the Digitized Sky Survey. On the right is an artist’s conception of the black hole pulling material from its massive blue companion star. (Credit: NASA/CXC chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2011/cygx1/)