Cygnus

Cygnus, the Swan, is a large, easily recognized summer constellation lying almost entirely in the Milky Way. The brightest star, Deneb, is a blue-white giant of type A and one of the most luminous stars known. With a mass of about 20 times the sun and a physical size of about 200 times the sun, Deneb is about 60,000 times as bright. Only its great distance of about 1500 light years prevents it from being brighter than all others in our sky. Deneb has already run out of hydrogen in its core and has begun its expansion into a red super-giant. It was likely a type O star while on the Main Sequence. Sadr, in the center of the Swan's wing, is also a giant star at about the same distance. A type F star, Sadr has also ceased to fuse hydrogen in its core and is moving away from the Main Sequence. Albireo, the head of the Swan, is a famous visual double, with a brighter amber colored star and a dimmer blue-green colored companion. This pair is easily seen in a small telescope and makes for a wonderful color contrast. But the two stars are not known to be gravitationally bound due to their large physical distance from each other. However, Albireo A, the brighter amber star, is known to be a close binary. Cygnus is host to a number of popular photographic objects, including the North American Nebula and the Veil Nebula, a supernova remnant.

Image taken August 9, 2010, with the Nikon D-90 riding piggyback on the Celestron C-5 telescope. Exposure is 2 minutes with the Nikkor 18 - 105 zoom lens, set at 18mm and F:3.5   ISO was 3200