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Its story

In Camelopardalis, that little-travelled northern giraffe, a white A-class star shines at 316 light years. The light treading the European north tonight took leave of its surface around 1709, just as Bartolomeo Cristofori in Florence was perfecting the first pianoforte. Clean colour, steady brightness: a white note sustained in one of the quietest constellations of the polar sky.