Thinking about the orbital motions of the star system known as Dabih is enough to make you dizzy. It consists of at least five stars, all orbiting each other in various configurations. In fact, one pair of stars has three different orbital motions. Dabih — from an Arabic phrase that means “the butcher” — is one of the leading lights of Capricornus. It’s close above or to the upper right of the Moon at nightfall — less than the width of a finger held at arm’s length. It’s not all that bright, though, so it may be tough to see through the lunar glare. Binoculars reveal that the system consists of two stars, known as Dabih Major and Dabih Minor. And it turns out that each of those stars is a group of two or more stars on its own. The two groups are separated by about a third of a light-year. At that range, it takes perhaps a million years for the groups to complete a single orbit around each other. What’s more, the stars within the groups are orbiting each other as well. Dabih Major, for
