61 Cygni

61 Cygni appears to have been given a mighty kick from somewhere. It's currently streaking across the sky (relatively speaking) and covering the width of the full moon every 150 years. This is partially because it really is moving quite fast and also because it's moving nearly opoosite to the motion of our Sun.

Being nearby it also has the distinction of being the first star to have it's distance measured, by parallax in 1838. Due to the star's high proper motion, the first measurements weren't very accurate by today's standards.

As a star, 61 Cygni is nothing special, being a wide, easy binary of two K class orange stars. The primary is 5.2 visual magnitude, its partner is 6.1. The co-orbital period is 653.3 years.

The system is about two fields in 7x50 binoculars south-east of the bright star Deneb. Larger binoculars or a small telescope will resolve it into the two stars of the binary.