Yed Prior

Its story

Yed Prior, 'the hand that precedes', together with Yed Posterior outlines the left hand of Ophiuchus, the serpent-bearer who wrestles a snake across half the summer sky. It is a cool red giant, swollen and ruddy, lying about 171 light-years away: the coppery tone is visible to the naked eye against the bluish-white of its sky-mate. The light reaching the eye tonight first set out around 1855, in the years just before electric lighting began to dim the world's night skies.