Changes

==History==

==History==

The observations of binary stars began with the invention of the telescope, with the first known recording in the 17th century.  [[Giovanni Battista Riccioli]] discovered in 1650 that [[Mizar]] was actually a binary. Christiaan Huygens found that that Theta Orionis was actually three stars in 1656, Robert Hooke made the same observation about Gamma Arietis in 1664, while in 1685 Father Fontenay observed that the star [[Acrux]] was really a binary pair.<ref>http://books.google.com/books?id=5tAMAAAAYAAJ&ots=_U3ebPQhyA&dq=The%20Binary%20Stars%2C%20Robert%20Grant%20Aitken&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q=&f=false</ref>

The observations of binary stars began with the invention of the telescope, with the first known recordings in the 17th century.  [[Giovanni Battista Riccioli]] discovered in 1650 that [[Mizar]] was actually a binary. Christiaan Huygens found that that Theta Orionis was actually three stars in 1656, Robert Hooke made the same observation about Gamma Arietis in 1664, while in 1685 Father Fontenay observed that the star [[Acrux]] was really a binary pair.<ref>http://books.google.com/books?id=5tAMAAAAYAAJ&ots=_U3ebPQhyA&dq=The%20Binary%20Stars%2C%20Robert%20Grant%20Aitken&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q=&f=false</ref>

[[William Herschel]] was the first person to coin the term binary star.  He defined the term in 1802 as:

[[William Herschel]] was the first person to coin the term binary star.  He defined the term in 1802 as: