Binary stars?

[Manok101]

I am supposed to be able to see binary stars with my Orion xt4.5 but I have no idea what they'd look like. I have seen jupiters moons through it. Is it something like what that? Really bright neighbor next to a tiny dot?

[Doc]

Binary stars is just a name for double or triple stars. Alot of stars you see are double stars that is either line of sight doubles where they have no connection or proper doubles where they go around each other.

[Moonshane]

a binary system (there are also tertiary systems and upward) is just a two star (or more) system where they are truly close together and act on each other. there are also 'optical' doubles which look like they are close together but just happen to line up in our sky.

a few easy ones:

Alberio in Cygnus - stunning

Castor in Gemini - just coming round in the north for me now

Alcor / Mizar in the elbow of Ursa Major (big dipper) - just about naked eye but great in bins/low power.

Polaris in Ursa Minor - the 'north star')

Epsilon Lyrae - the double double in Lyra (next to Vega - the really bright star straight up). the first double is an easy split in your finder. each 'star' of the first pair is a double too - much harder to split.

these will keep you going for a bit.

[Moonshane]

ps

they can be bigger/smaller or brighter/dimmer than each other, same size, same/different colours etc etc - no real rules.

[Manok101]

I was looking at the pleadies last night, I remember seeing a star kind of in the middle that had two other stars near it, and there were several that had smaller companions nearby, and I know from a video I watched that there are a couple binaries in the pleadies.

[Moonshane]

absolutely! in reality I think I read that our own system is quite unusual in having a single star.

[Skills]

I really like the double double. It just seems like a really cool thing: two binaries orbiting each other and then in the telescope it doesn't disappoint, it looks exactly as it should. Easy to find too.

[Manok101]

Double double reminds me of a pizza commercial here in the states pizza pizza. I'm sure you could find it on youtube

[Xaviermarch]

I have managed to split the double double into four stars which was great to see. I have also managed to resolve other doubles, such as Albeiro. Whenever I polar align my scope I often try to get Polaris to split but have never been able to at any magnification. Should I be able to using a 130mm scope or am I doing something wrong?