The center of mass can change due to a transfer of mass from the least massive star to the more massive star. At the end of a more massive stars life, it will then begin to dump mass more and more rapidly onto the companion star until it consume all of the hydrogen fuel. Increasing in size, the companion star now has a flattened disk of hydrogen gas swirling around it. There are three types of binary stars.
Visual binaries are stars that are separated in a telescope.
Both stars can be seen and their orbital motion can be observed. Spectroscopic binaries is when two sets of spectral lines are doppler shifted due to orbital motion. The spectrum of the stars can be seen since the elements and gases from the stars produce emission and absorption lines at a specific wavelength. The two stars are in mutual revolution. With the latest development of high resolution imaging to study these objects, my goal for this project it to obtain images of binary systems and validate their expected positions.