Mr Graham Hosty, of Huddersfield, has discovered a nova with nothing more to help him than an O-Level in astronomy, keen eyesight, one half of a broken pair of binoculars that cost him £10, and an observatory housed in a wooden shed in the yard of his back-to-back house.
It is an astonishing achievement and one that eludes most astronomers in a lifetime of scanning the night skies. Mr Hosty, a 27-year-old postman, believes that he is only the second man in Britain in 15 years to have discovered a nova, a star that surges into sudden brilliance and then fades over the succeeding months.
He is a member of the Nova Patrol, a group of about 15 amateurs. His beat is six regions of the Milky Way. On the night of January 7 he took his monocular, which had a prism loose, and set it up on a rickety tripod near the dustbin, a good vantage point when he turned his attention to the constellation Sagitta. It was misty, there was glare from the street lights, and he was aiming straight between the chimney pots of Nos 89 and 93 Blackmoorfoot Road - not the best conditions for a backyard, or indeed any, astronomer.
"I had got five minutes into the sweep, around the area Alpha Sagitta, when I saw a star I had never seen before," he said. "I was absolutely amazed. Immediately I realized that what I was watching was probably a nova. For a moment I was frozen by the sight. Then I recovered and became a serious astronomer."
He drew the area, noted the position of his discovery and checked it against the catalogues of the region. It was not shown as a variable star. He wrote his report and telephoned the news to Mr Guy Hurst, of Northampton, founder of the Nova Patrol.
Asked how he had managed to discover a nova with makeshift equipment ahead of the professional astronomers, Mr Hosty said: "Amateurs have a much better chance of discovering objects because they are always searching the sky on clear nights." The British Astronomical Association has received confirmation of the sighting from Mr Hurst.
The discovery will be given a number, and the name of the man who discovered it will be recorded, but there will be no official record of how the nova was found by a man standing by a dustbin in a backyard, looking through the remaining half of a broken pair of binoculars. Truly, per ardua ad astra.