William Tyler Olcott

“ Cygnus is a splendid field for telescopes, great and small. Its chief object of beauty is the incomparably beautiful double star, Beta Cygni, also known as " Albireo," situated in the base of the Cross and in the beak of the Swan. Even in a small telescope the contrast in the colours of these two close set stars is well emphasised, and the sight of these suns, the one gold, the other blue, never fails to charm all who view them. ”

“ The Cross is formed by the stars α, γ, η, β Cygni, marking the upright along the Milky Way, more than twenty degrees in length, and ζ, ε, γ, δ Cygni, forming the transverse.
The early Christians regarded this figure as the Cross of Calvary, as did Schiller. The Northern Cross is certainly much more perfect in form than the famed Southern Cross, and setting in the west, when it assumes an upright position, it presents a beautiful appearance. ”

“ Between α, γ, and ε Cygni is one of the vacant spaces in the Milky Way, a black and seemingly bottomless abyss, the brink over which man peers into the profound and mysterious depths of interstellar space. This wonderful region in the sky is known as "the Northern Coal Sack."
Cygnus is celebrated as containing the nearest lucid star in the northern hemisphere, a 5.6 magnitude star, barely visible to the naked eye, known as "61 Cygni." It is a double star, both being golden yellow in colour, situated six degrees north and east of the star ε Cygni. ”