The adjacent animation illustrates eclipses in the Algol binary system. Click "Play" to begin. The perspective is from the Earth, as we would see the system if we could resolve the individual stars.
The blue object is the B8 star and the red object the K2 star of the Algol system. The axes represent angle on the celestial sphere and are labeled in thousandths of an arc second (milli-arcsec) with respect to the center of mass. North is towards the lower right (in this animation the images are upside down relative to the previous diagram that we presented for Algol). Notice the substantial distortion of the K2 star by the gravitational influence of its companion.