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Vega, the Standard Star of astronomy, sits 25 light-years distant, sending photons from the year 2000. Zero-point of the magnitude system, lyre of Orpheus, loom of the Weaver Girl. A decan of harmony and beauty through precision, craft, and calibration.
The photons entering your eyes right now left Deneb around 590 BCE, from the age of Pythagoras and the Buddha, when the foundations of every major intellectual tradition were laid simultaneously across civilizations that had no contact with each other. 2,615 years that photon traveled, arriving tonight as bright as stars a hundred times closer. September 26 - October 5: create something the universe cannot ignore.
The photons entering your eyes right now left Altair in 2008. This A7 V white main-sequence star rotates once every 8.9 hours, so fast it has squashed itself into an oblate spheroid. In 2007, it became the first star other than the Sun whose surface was directly imaged. The Flying Eagle opens Decan 19 with vision and speed: see clearly, move fast, accept the shape that velocity gives you.