I tried out Stellarium in the backyard with my laptop. The night mode with full screen display was useful. I decided to find Cepheus, which I don’t remember observing when I was younger (although I probably did).

I found Errai (Gamma Cephei) pretty quickly, and then caught a moving satellite (Starlink 1892). In fact, I noticed many, many Starlink satellites on Stellarium, and caught several of them while observing for a short period of time.

Near Errai is a pair of stars, HD 211405 and HD 221537. They are not related but appear as a distinct pair with similar magnitudes, 7.13 and 7.05 respectively.

HD 211405 is 1003.58 light years away. I wonder if it is possible for a photon to have traveled from the Sun or Earth and then bounced back from the HD 211405 system. If so, such a photon would have left our solar system around 17AD (1003.58*2 years ago). At the time Tiberius was the Roman Emperor. Herod Antipas built the city Tiberias on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. About 17 miles way, Jesus Christ was growing up in Nazareth.

On the other side of Errai I found HD 223731 (magnitude 6.66) HD 224203 (magnitude 7.94). I think I saw HD 224413 (magnitude 8.25) with averted vision, but I cannot be sure and will check again in the future.