Watch a Nearby Nova Explosion--With Your Own Eyes, Tonight

A general rule of skygazing is that the farther you look, the less things change. Clouds? Different from one minute to the next. Moon? Phases shifting every night. Planets? You can easily see them move over the course of a week. But stars? Nah, they're usually the same your whole lifetime. Usually. Right now is one of the exceptions to that rule. Five days ago, amateur astronomer Koichi Itagaki of Yamagata, Japan was the first to report that a previously obscure star in the constellation