United States: On a very cold February night in 1946, 15-year-old Michael Woodman, an amateur astronomer from Newport, made an amazing discovery. While waiting for his father to come home and he also looked out of his bedroom window and also saw something strange in the night sky. The second star in the Corona Borealis constellation was unusually bright, and Michael thought, “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
The next morning, he corresponded with the Astronomer Royal. The now 94-year-old man smiles and said he could hardly believe his teenage bravado when he did that.
‘‘And bless me if the Astronomer Royal didn’t reply, with a letter I’ve still got.’’
As reported by the BBC.com, Michael Woodman had seen a marriage of fire in the sky that burned only for a moment. Not only that, but the Astronomer Royal also told him that he was the first man in the country to have glimpsed this.
He had noted a star system, some 1994 light years away, known as T Corona Borealis – T Cor Bor for the cognoscenti – bloating, visibly expanding into the night sky just long enough to be observed to be gone again a few days later.
“I hit the jackpot,” he says.
How to look for T Cor Bor
Now a whole new generation of stargazers are scanning the skies again because scientists say T Cor Bor flares up roughly every 80 years or so.
On a cloudy night in the Bannau Brycheiniog or Brecon Beacons Dark Skies Reserve, astronomers prepare their equipment for the night sky view.
The constant, T Cor Bor, isn’t very bright right now; it has a magnitude of 10, which is far too faint to be observed with the naked eye, according to Dr Jenifer Millard of Fifth Star Labs.
Where it should appear is the area of sky, she suggests finding the plough then turn towards the handle and locate Arcturus. To the west of this star is a curving constellation of seven stars known as Corona Borealis, where T Cor Bor will do some day.
The meteorological event is the appearance that is as a result of the encounter of two stars in mutual gravity.
A tiny white dwarf star and a larger, but equally old red giant star is performing a beautiful tango around each other.