Binary Stars

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Binary Stars

• By Lucy Romero

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Binary Star In Action

• This is a picture of of a binary star. The two
  stars are rotating around each other.

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What is an eclipsing binary star?

• An eclipsing binary star is a system in which one
  star moves in front of the other causing the
  system to become dimmer.

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How common are binary stars?

• very common
• half of all the stars in the sky are binary stars
• it does not seem like it because only five to ten
  percent of the stars are visual binary stars
• you would have to look closely under a telescope
  to actually see that instead of one star there
  there are two

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STAR AT 25 DEGREES
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STAR AT 250 DEGREES
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STAR AT 360 DEGREES
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This is a picture of the larger star in front of
the smaller star.

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Smaller Star

• This is a picture of the smaller star in front of
  the larger star.

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OO Aql

• stars getting dimmer and then getting brighter
  again
• continues happening as the stars orbit each other
• when one star covers the other star the system
  gets dimmer
• when they pass each other the system gets bright
  again

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Procedure

• First, we learned what a binary star is.
• Second, we stayed out at night and observed the
  binary star from about 10pm. To 200am.We looked
  at it through the telescope but after a while, it
  began getting cloudy so we went inside
  communicated with someone from Mount Hamilton.
• Third, we played around with the computer to
  match the light curve of the binary star with the
  simulated light curve.

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Results

• binary stars were fairly large
• were close together not far away
• different temperatures
• one had a spot with less light