Calculating the motion of binary stars

[hragsarkissia]

This is more of general question, but i am working on a project that involves binary stars. Basically, i am capturing data through a telescope, and i was wondering if i had all the parameters, how could i project, or calculate the motion of a binary star in terms of speed and direction.
Any hint would be appreciated, if you think i should approach this differently, please let me know.

I was looking at Kepler's laws to understand the motion of the stars, and i have a general idea about them.

 

[alphysicist]

Hi hragsarkissia,

This is more of general question, but i am working on a project that involves binary stars. Basically, i am capturing data through a telescope, and i was wondering if i had all the parameters, how could i project, or calculate the motion of a binary star in terms of speed and direction.
Any hint would be appreciated, if you think i should approach this differently, please let me know.

I was looking at Kepler's laws to understand the motion of the stars, and i have a general idea about them.

I don't understand what you have at this point. Are you saying you have already calculated some general parameters from the measurements, or are you asking how to use the raw measurements?

 

[Dick]

If you are actually observing binary stars through a smallish telescope, there really isn't much you can determine about their motion by observation. The ones you can split in a telescope are hugely far apart and their rotation period is measured in hundreds or thousands of years, at least. You can get a period for eclipsing binaries, but not much else. Algol is famous. Other than that a lot of information about binaries comes from spectroscopy (doppler shift).