Alberio Observatory is named after the double star Beta Cygni. Through a telescope the brighter of its two suns shines with a golden hue, in striking contrast with the fainter star's sapphire blue. Strictly speaking, Albireo is the name of just the brighter, yellow star, Beta Cygni A. To the naked eye, the duo appears as a single magnitude 3 star at the head of Cygnus the Swan, or the foot of the Northern Cross, depending on which asterism you prefer, and the name itself seems to be a mistaken translation from Latin and Arabic.

The Dome

The observatory's twelve-and-a-half foot diameter Galavalume dome was manufactured by Lancaster Domes back in the 1990's or early 2000's. They are no longer in business, but I was told this dome was a prototype for another dome built for one of their big customers. It apparently had never been fully assembled until now, and only the two were ever manufactured. I purchased it in January of 2012, but had it stored until we acquired the land in 2021. It is a modified silo dome and appears to be closely modeled on an Ash Dome. As a matter of fact, it is close enough to an Ash Dome that I'm using one of their manuals to assemble it. However, Lancaster did take some liberties with the execution, which has required a bit of head scratching now and again. Part of the problem may be that this dome is simply an older design than the manual I'm using and some things changed over the years.