Albireo (Beta Cygni) is the third brightest star in the constellation Cygnus. Although it has the Bayer designation "beta", it is actually fainter than Gamma Cygni. Since Cygnus is "the swan", and Albireo is located at the head of the swan, it is sometimes called the "beak star". It also forms the "Northern Cross" along with Deneb, Delta Cygni and Eta Cygni.

In Star Trek, Beta Cygni was a star system somewhere in the region of sectors 21538 to 23079. According to a Starship Mission Status report, Beta Cygni was the site of a planetary mapping survey by the USS Fearless - one of the ships that received Kosinski's experimental warp drive upgrades in 2364 (TNG: "Where No One Has Gone Before").

In reality, Albireo is 385 light years away from the Earth. With bare eyes Albireo seems like a single star. However, when viewed with a telescope it readily resolves into a double star, one yellow (apparent magnitude 3.1), the other blue (apparent magnitude 5.1). Separated by 34 seconds of arc, the two components provide one of the best contrasting double stars in the sky due to their different colors.

They had been considered as merely optical double, not orbiting around a common point as a true binary star system would be. However, in spite of the large distance between them, it has been shown that they are a true binary system. The brighter, yellow member of the pair, Beta Cygni A, is itself a close binary.