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The first documented records of systematic astronomical observations data back to the Assyro-Babylonians around 1000BCE. If you don’t take into account celestial tomes. Then you’re going back six thousand years. The Greeks, of course, were very clever and knew the Earth was the centre of the universe, without the need to step foot off-planet. Later, they knew that actually the Sun is more distant than our Moon, and that perceived brightness tells us this. With the right calculator and a couple of other factors, it can also tell us its age. Or how close it is to dying.
He could never explain his fascination with the stars, not really. In the centuries since those first moments, face lit by many a protostar, Aziraphale kept track of the cosmos. Despite his many hobbies he never did become a fully-fledged astronomer, preferring to stay on the sidelines and leave it to the mathematicians. But that didn’t stop him from keeping a tally whenever a star went out. His bookshop wouldn’t exist for another five hundred years, yet with the help of some impressive sleight-of-hand and a couple of oranges disappearing into cups, he acquired a copy of Ulugh Beg’s star catalogue. Not technically a book. More a large contraption spanning the width of a maple tree. A record none the same. When Alexandria fell, he shed a tear for the hundreds of lost transcriptions. Human foibles aside, the angel diligently collected and stored humanity’s attempts to plot heaven’s greatest export. Literally. The stars were the biggest things in the universe… Aside from God.
Nine thousand. If you time your existence correctly, nine thousand stars have the potential to be seen by you from Earth. Alpha Centauri is the closest, and most desired holiday destination of one Anthony Crowley. Though visible to the naked eye, modern-day astronomers assume some of these stars have already died and we are just seeing the ghostly preview of their impending afterglow. Betelgeuse is one of these. Though some would argue it’s unlikely. Aziraphale rather liked Betelgeuse, and if it happened to be known for being orange-tawny-ruddy and other such manners of describing the word red, well, those astronomers were just stating an objective fact. And if three centuries prior to those initial observations it was known for being yellow… Nobody could hold that fact against him for it implies nothing other than a state of being.
Navigationally, humans were onto a trick when they started using the stars to give directions. He found it rather inspiring that they assigned a star to “North” that could always be seen, even during the day. And when they could see what heaven could not, and painted pictures into the sky, he appreciated them even more. The first cameras in space could not capture the sheer delight of being there for their creation, but Aziraphale revelled in God’s creation finally getting up close with the only thing that ever rivalled them. If it weren’t blasphemous to say. And when they did leave the safety of the ground, a little miracle here or there to ensure their return wouldn’t go amiss.
Much like another red-yellow-mercurial fellow, Betelgeuse cycles through brightness like Crowley changed appearance. The red is a constant. As the yellow. When it dropped off the top 20 Brightest Stars in the Sky, Aziraphale felt as though his stomach had shrunk three sizes and the air he didn’t need to breathe had left the room. After reassuring himself that it wasn’t due to explode for another hundred-thousand years he went about the rest of his day. Ignoring the niggling at the back of his mind that the Almighty would likely destroy the universe before then anyway. It was all part of the Plan.
Whenever he thought of Betelgeuse, he couldn’t help but think of a certain demon friend. Not associated with any others strictly speaking – though Aziraphale liked to believe he could be considered a friend. And much like the star’s surrounding envelope of matter obscures its light, those damned sunglasses would often hide what he considered his friend’s best features. He understood why humans would be troubled by those eyes. But he couldn’t help but be caught in their gaze and would gladly spend an eternity bathing in their light. At its eventual supernova, he’s going to have to find a new comparison. He just thanked his lucky stars Betelgeuse wasn’t in a binary system, or the correlation of it with Crowley would be very sad for him indeed. Doomed by gravity to orbit but never quite touch. For if they did one would absorb the other in a catastrophic and sublime display of light. Luckily for him, Betelgeuse if it ever had once been part of such a system, it wasn’t any more, any connection had become unstable, exploded, and the star had run away.
After dealing with the Metatron, he couldn’t help but think the Betelgeuse comparison rather more apt than first intended.