The Astronomy Club of the University of Wisconsin—Eau Claire

Albireo: The Star

Albireo is a double star system in the constellation Cygnus, the swan. One of the stars is blue; the other is gold. So, we fondly call it the “Blugold Star”.

Double stars, also known as binary stars, are systems in which two stars orbit each other. About half of the local stars in our galaxy belong to multiple star systems. The Albireo star system is approximately 380 light-years away, and it takes 75,000 years for the stars to complete one orbit about each other.

Albireo is actually a triple star system. The gold star is itself a binary system, but the two stars are not easily resolved in a small telescope. One of these two stars is a bright giant, and the other is a smaller, but hotter, dwarf. The giant is approximately 950 times more luminous, 50 times larger in radius, and five times larger in mass than the Sun. The smaller star is about 100 times more luminous and 3.2 times more massive than the Sun. The two stars take almost 100 years to orbit each other.

The blue star in the Albireo system is 190 times more luminous and 3.3 times more massive than the Sun.

Albireo: The Student Organization

The purpose of Albireo is to promote education in the field of astronomy through campus and community outreach activities and member field trips. Albireo is open to any UWEC student who is interested in astronomy. No prior knowledge of astronomy is necessary. Our members come from a variety of different backgrounds and have a variety of majors. We all want to share the beauty of astronomy! We are a new organization, but we have already accomplished a lot.

Accomplishmets

Our first step was to write our constitution and bylaws and become an official Student Organization at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. We became official in November, 2007. Since then, we have done both solar observing and night-time observing with telescopes on and off campus. We also watched the Orionid and Geminid meteor showers. This month, we created a promotional display in the student union. In October, some of us traveled to Minneapolis to see "In the Shadow of the Moon", a new documentary about the Apollo missions.

Projects

One of our projects for next semester is to develop public outreach programs for the local schools. We will give indoor presentations to school groups, then have observing sessions at night. Some of our members have telescopes, and others have green laser pointers that they use to teach constellations. We had a presentation and observing night planned for a dorm event for December, but unfortunately the weather did not cooperate.

We are also busy building a display board to go on the wall outside the L.E. Phillips Planetarium on campus. It’s been interesting figuring out how to mount it on a curved wall!

Luckily for us, the Physics and Astronomy Department has a 14” Celestron telescope that isn’t being used. So, they have generously decided that the club will be allowed to use it. We are working on getting it up and running and finding a place to store it.

Goals

Several of the Albireo members plan to become members of the Chippewa Valley Astronomical Society as well. As members, we will be trained to use the 14” telescope and the 24” telescope at Hobbs Observatory near Fall Creek. Some members have already become involved in the club; we helped clear brush this fall in order to improve the view from the domes. We are currently planning a field trip to the planetarium in the Twin Cities, and maybe we’ll eventually get to the planetarium and astronomy museum in Chicago.