On a cold February night in 1946, a 15-year-old schoolboy made a surprising discovery as he peered out of his bedroom window.
Michael Woodman, a keen amateur astronomer from Newport, had stayed up late waiting for his father to come home when he noticed something strange in the night sky.
“There was the constellation of Corona Borealis, but in the ring of the Corona, the second star down was bright – very bright,” he explains.
“And I thought ‘I’ve never seen anything like that before.'”
The next morning he wrote to the Astronomer Royal. The now 94-year-old smiles as he recalls the memory, surprised that his teenage self would be so bold.
“And bless me if the Astronomer Royal didn’t reply, with a letter I’ve still got.”
Michael Woodman had witnessed a rare celestial event that briefly dazzled the heavens. Not only that, the Astronomer Royal informed him that he was the first person in the country to have seen this.
He’d spotted a star system, about 3,000 light years away, called T Corona Borealis – or T Cor Bor for short – exploding into brightness, becoming visible in the night sky for a few short days.
“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 believe T Cor Bor ignites about every 80 years or so.
On a crystal clear night, in the Dark Skies Reserve of Bannau Brycheiniog, also known as the Brecon Beacons, astronomers are setting up their telescopes.
“T Cor Bor
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