A black hole on a list of the best deep-sky targets? That sounds like an oxymoron! But for the observer who likes to track down the unusual, this is an ideal target. In a telescope, Cygnus X-1 looks like another faint star among many — and to be honest, this is true. But astronomical research shows us that this seemingly insignificant star is so much more.
The first indication it was peculiar was noted in 1964, when a pair of rocketborne Geiger counters discovered an X-ray source. Astron