hip-16368

Its story

In the small Reticulum, the reticle that honours the astronomer's eyepiece, burns a hot blue star some 868 light-years away. Its light set out around 1158, when the University of Bologna was being established as a benchmark of European learning. Far hotter and more luminous than the Sun, its near-violet tone stands out among the small anonymous stars that populate this corner of the southern hemisphere.