hip-9312

Its story

Cassiopeia traces a recognisable W in the north, and among its strokes lives this A-class white star. The light now crossing the eyepiece set out around 1779, while James Cook had just died in Hawaii and Europe was following his travel journals from afar. Two hundred and forty-five years later, that same light falls as a faint flicker, magnitude 5.29, right on the edge of what the naked eye catches on a clear night.