Gam

Its story

Gamma Pictoris is a K1 III orange giant, shining fifty-three times brighter than the Sun and swollen to about eleven solar diameters. The constellation of the Painter's Easel —another of Lacaille's eighteenth-century southern inventions— is discreet, yet this third-brightest light fulfils its role from some 177 light-years away, a serene reminder that almost any yellow star like the Sun will one day come to resemble this: slow, dilated, golden in retirement.