Eps

Its story

Epsilon Mensae is an orange K-type star about 467 light-years away, another discreet point on the southern Table. The whole figure proved so faint to Lacaille that, by tradition, its stars evoked for him the cloth of cloud that drapes Cape Town's Table Mountain —hence the name and the muted character. This star, cool and distant, contributes to that low-light aesthetic that defines the only astronomical constellation named after a mountain.