A photographic series from the Death Valley Observatory in the dark skies of Amargosa Valley, using the Seestar S50.
It has no first-magnitude stars and no pattern that leaps out at you. It is a modest constellation, laid out between Cygnus and Sagitta, right in the heart of the summer Milky Way. And that is exactly what makes it a treasure: to see it well, you need genuinely dark skies. From Amargosa Valley, under a Bortle 1 sky, the Little Fox stops being shy.
For this series, I pointed my Seestar S50 at its named stars—those carrying a Flamsteed or variable-star designation—and let each one pose for a few minutes. The result is not a set of spectacular nebulae, but something more intimate: portraits of individual stars, each with its true color, its temperature written in light, and its own small story.
α Vulpeculae — Anser, the Fox and the Goose
Exposure: 8 minutes of integration.
Visual and artistic analysis
The image is a rich, deep star field on an ink-black background—the signature of a Bortle 1 sky. In the lower right, a warm-toned star dominates, somewhere between orange and amber, clearly larger and brighter than its neighbors thanks to the "bloating" its light produces. Beside it, a small group of stars keeps it company, and higher up shines a prominent white star. The contrast of colors—the protagonist's amber against the blue-white of the background stars—is the true spectacle of this shot.
Astronomical and scientific context
Identification. This is Anser (Alpha Vulpeculae, α Vul), whose name means "goose" in Latin. The star preserves the memory of the constellation's original name, given by Johannes Hevelius in the 17th century: Vulpecula cum Ansere, "the little fox with the goose." It is the brightest star in the constellation, at magnitude 4.44.
What it is and where it is. Anser is a red giant of spectral type M1 III, located about 291 light-years away. It has exhausted the hydrogen in its core and swelled to roughly 43 times the Sun's radius; it shines with more than 400 solar luminosities despite having a mass similar to our own. Its relatively cool surface (around 3,700 K) is what gives it that orange hue.
Scale and perspective. Anser forms an optical double with the star 8 Vulpeculae, an orange giant separated by just 7 arcminutes in the sky. It's a trick of perspective: 8 Vul lies much farther away, at about 457 light-years. They are not bound by gravity; they only line up from our vantage point.
Revealing fact. Anser probably was not born in the Milky Way. It belongs to the so-called Arcturus stream, a group of stars thought to have come from a small dwarf galaxy devoured by our galaxy billions of years ago. With nearly 11 billion years behind it, this star is a traveler from another stellar realm, now woven into our own.
4 Vulpeculae — the quiet orange giant
Exposure: 5 minutes of integration.
Visual and artistic analysis
Against a somewhat sparser field, with slight vignetting at the edges, a warm-colored star stands out at the center, golden-orange. Near the top edge, a very close pair of stars catches the eye, also in warm tones—a wink for the curious observer. The background mixes white and amber points, giving the whole an autumnal atmosphere.
Astronomical and scientific context
Identification. 4 Vulpeculae, at magnitude 5.16. It is so faint that it can only be seen with the naked eye under truly dark skies like those of Amargosa.
What it is and where it is. It is an orange giant of type K0 III, about 260 light-years away. It sits in the "red clump" phase: an evolved star that is now steadily burning helium in its core. It has grown to about 11 times the Sun's radius and has a surface temperature of around 4,760 K, hence its color.
Physical processes. At about 2.6 billion years old, 4 Vulpeculae is a star of "advanced middle age": after leaving the main sequence, it swelled and cooled. Its orange color is the portrait of a star that has already lived a good deal.
Curious fact. It has a very faint companion (magnitude 11.36) separated by about 19 arcseconds. It is a challenge even for large telescopes, and it shows how a single naked-eye star can conceal an entire system.
9 Vulpeculae — the blue spinning top
Exposure: 2 minutes of integration.
Visual and artistic analysis
This is the shortest exposure of the series, and it shows: the field is sparser, dominated by warm-toned stars on deep black. At the center shines the protagonist, clean and white, surrounded by a modest swarm of orange points. A sober, almost minimalist composition.
Astronomical and scientific context
Identification. 9 Vulpeculae, magnitude 5.01.
What it is and where it is. A blue-white giant of type B8 III, about 560 light-years away, with a surface at around 12,000 K—more than twice as hot as the Sun.
Physical processes. Its classification includes an "n" that stands for "nebulous" lines: it is a fast rotator, spinning at about 185 km/s at its equator. That dizzying rotation broadens the lines in its spectrum and slightly flattens the star, like a spinning top stretched by its own motion.
Curious fact. At only about 185 million years old, 9 Vulpeculae is a young, hot star burning its fuel in a hurry. Blue stars like this one live fast and die young compared to our Sun.
12 Vulpeculae — the star that wraps itself in a ring
Exposure: 9 minutes of integration.
Visual and artistic analysis
An elegant, not overly crowded field. At the center reigns a clearly blue-white star—cooler in tone than warm—wearing that soft halo that betrays its brightness. Up and to the left, an isolated orange star adds chromatic contrast. The whole composition breathes, with plenty of black space between the points.
Astronomical and scientific context
Identification. 12 Vulpeculae, which also carries a variable-star designation: V395 Vulpeculae. Its brightness varies slightly, between magnitude 4.78 and 4.97.
What it is and where it is. It is a Be star of type B2.5V, about 630 light-years away. At nearly 19,000 K in surface temperature and about 7 solar masses, it is one of the hottest and most massive stars in this series.
Physical processes. The "e" suffix (for emission) is the key: spinning at about 195 km/s, 12 Vulpeculae flings material off from its equator and surrounds itself with a disk of gas—a decretion disk—that emits light of its own. That disk appears and disappears over the years, and it is what makes its brightness vary.
Revealing fact. Be stars are among the most dynamic of the "normal" stars: they don't explode, but they actively shed their own matter. We are watching a star in the very act of losing weight.
13 Vulpeculae — the third brightest and its companion
Exposure: 7 minutes of integration (framed on the B component).
Visual and artistic analysis
One of the loveliest compositions in the series. Two blue-white stars stand out against the field: one in the upper half and another toward the center, both wearing the same clean, cool halo. The background, sprinkled with amber points, frames this luminous pair like two beacons in the night.
Astronomical and scientific context
Identification. 13 Vulpeculae, the third brightest star in the constellation (magnitude 4.64 for the primary component).
What it is and where it is. The primary star, 13 Vul A, is a blue-white giant of type B9.5 III, about 339 light-years away. It forms a genuine binary system with a fainter companion (13 Vul B), and both are gravitationally bound at a very similar distance from us.
Physical processes. With an almost pure white color, 13 Vul A has a surface temperature of about 10,000 K. It is a star that has already left the main sequence and swelled to about four times the size of the Sun.
Curious fact. The orbit between A and B is enormously long: estimated at more than 600 years per revolution. By the time these two stars complete a single orbit, more than twenty human generations will have passed on Earth.
15 Vulpeculae — the star with chemical spots
Exposure: 4 minutes of integration.
Visual and artistic analysis
A balanced, serene composition. At the center shines a white-blue star, and just above it a small companion of the same cool tone keeps it company, like a note and its echo. The field, of medium density, has a pleasant scattering of background stars.
Astronomical and scientific context
Identification. 15 Vulpeculae, with the variable-star designation NT Vulpeculae. It is the nearest named star in the entire constellation.
What it is and where it is. A white star of type A4 III, about 243 light-years away, with a surface at around 7,700 K and a little over twice the Sun's mass.
Physical processes. 15 Vulpeculae is a variable of the Alpha² Canum Venaticorum type: a chemically peculiar star with a strong magnetic field that concentrates certain elements into "spots" on its surface. As the star rotates, those spots move in and out of our view, and its brightness changes slightly.
Revealing fact. Stellar magnetism can paint a star's surface unevenly, like chemical continents. What we see as a steady point of light is, in reality, a surface with its own geography rotating before us.
16 Vulpeculae — the most eccentric orbit
Exposure: 12 minutes of integration (the longest in the series).
Visual and artistic analysis
With the longest exposure, this field is rich and deep. At the center shines a white star; below and to the left, a clearly blue companion; and to the right, an isolated orange star. That trio of colors—white, blue, and amber—against a dense background makes this one of the most chromatically complete shots of the set.
Astronomical and scientific context
Identification. 16 Vulpeculae, combined magnitude 5.79, right at the limit of naked-eye visibility.
What it is and where it is. It is a binary system whose primary star is of type F2 III, about 222 light-years away, with a surface at around 6,900 K, a little hotter than the Sun.
Physical processes. The extraordinary thing about 16 Vulpeculae is its orbit. The two stars take about 1,200 years to circle one another, following an ellipse of eccentricity 0.93—one of the most elongated stellar orbits known. They draw very close and then swing far apart, in an exceedingly slow, sweeping waltz.
Curious fact. An eccentricity of 0.93 means that, at the farthest point of their dance, the stars are dozens of times more distant than at the nearest. It's the difference between nearly brushing past each other and losing sight of one another entirely.
17 Vulpeculae — the blue newborn
Exposure: 6 minutes of integration.
Visual and artistic analysis
A clean, well-populated field. The protagonist, at the center, is an unmistakable blue-white, accompanied by a small blue companion just below. Around it, a uniform tapestry of background stars with scattered warm touches.
Astronomical and scientific context
Identification. 17 Vulpeculae, magnitude 5.08.
What it is and where it is. A blue-white main-sequence star, type B3 V, about 480 light-years away. Its surface burns at more than 15,600 K and its mass is around 6 times the Sun's.
Physical processes. Its intense blue color is pure heat: it emits much of its light in the ultraviolet. It shines with more than 500 solar luminosities despite its modest size, because temperature, raised to the fourth power, sends luminosity soaring.
Revealing fact. 17 Vulpeculae is astonishingly young: only about 11 million years old. When its light set out 480 years ago, the 16th century was unfolding on Earth; but the star itself, on a cosmic scale, is practically a baby fresh out of its parent cloud.
21 Vulpeculae — a star's heartbeat
Exposure: 4 minutes of integration.
Visual and artistic analysis
The framing shows marked vignetting at the edges, which frames the field like a window. At the center, a clean, well-defined white-blue star presides over a medium-density background of stars in varied tones.
Astronomical and scientific context
Identification. 21 Vulpeculae, with the variable-star designation NU Vulpeculae, magnitude 5.19.
What it is and where it is. A white star of type A7, about 313 light-years away, with a surface at around 7,700 K. It is a very fast rotator, spinning at more than 220 km/s.
Physical processes. 21 Vulpeculae is a variable of the Delta Scuti type: it physically pulsates, expanding and contracting in cycles of a few hours, which makes its brightness fluctuate slightly. It is, quite literally, a star that beats.
Curious fact. The pulsations of Delta Scuti stars allow astronomers to "listen" to their interiors through asteroseismology, in much the same way a seismologist studies the interior of the Earth from its tremors.
22 Vulpeculae — the eclipse of a yellow giant
Exposure: 5 minutes of integration.
Visual and artistic analysis
In this rich, deep field, the protagonist, toward the center-left, shows a warm tone—between yellow and golden white—that sets it apart from most of its neighbors. Up and to the right, a prominent white star provides a counterpoint. The contrast between the protagonist's gold and its neighbor's white is subtle and elegant.
Astronomical and scientific context
Identification. 22 Vulpeculae, also known as QS Vulpeculae, magnitude around 5.2.
What it is and where it is. It is an eclipsing binary system located about 1,490 light-years away—among the most distant in the series. It is made up of a yellow bright giant (type G9, about 96 times the Sun's radius) and a hot blue companion star of type B8.
Physical processes. It is a system of the Zeta Aurigae / Algol type: from our perspective, the two stars eclipse one another each time one passes in front of the other, with an orbital period of about 249 days. When the yellow giant covers the small blue star, the total brightness of the system drops.
Revealing fact. During these eclipses, the light of the blue star passes through the outer layers of the yellow giant just before it is hidden. By analyzing that filtered light, astronomers can "sample" the giant's atmosphere, layer by layer, as if taking an X-ray of it.
QR Vulpeculae — the X-ray star
Exposure: 5 minutes of integration.
Visual and artistic analysis
A dense, heavily populated field, typical of the heart of the summer Milky Way. In the lower center shines the protagonist, blue-white, over a carpet of countless background stars in tones ranging from white to amber. It is one of the shots that best conveys the sensation of gazing into the interior of our galaxy.
Astronomical and scientific context
Identification. QR Vulpeculae (also cataloged as HD 192685 and HR 7739). Its brightness varies between magnitude 4.60 and 4.80. It was recognized as a variable in 1982 and received its QR Vul designation in 1985.
What it is and where it is. It is a Be star of type B3, with a companion of type A7, located about 1,000 light-years away. Its surface burns at around 18,700 K and, like a good Be star, it spins fast (about 160 km/s) and surrounds itself with a disk of gas.
Physical processes. QR Vulpeculae is a variable of the Gamma Cassiopeiae type: a select group of Be stars that, unusually for stars of this kind, emit intense and erratic X-rays. The exact origin of that emission remains a matter of scientific debate—one of those questions astronomy has not yet fully closed.
Curious fact. That such an apparently quiet naked-eye star should in fact be a variable X-ray source reminds us that the sky hides extreme physics behind every point of light. The Little Fox keeps, among its modest stars, genuine open riddles.
Coda: the sky's thermometer
Lined up together, these eleven stars tell a story no nebula could tell better: that of color as temperature. From the cool amber of Anser and 4 Vulpeculae, through the intermediate white of the type-A stars, to the burning blue of 12 and 17 Vulpeculae, each portrait is a direct reading of the heat of a surface tens or hundreds of light-years away.
And there is more: giants swelling at the end of their lives, newborns only millions of years old, stars that pulse, that spin until they shed their own matter, that eclipse one another, or that emit X-rays for reasons we don't fully understand. All of that lives in a constellation most people have never looked at, in a corner that reveals itself only under truly dark skies.
That, perhaps, is the best lesson of the Little Fox: the modest is not the insignificant. It's enough to look patiently—and with a sky black enough—to discover that even the humblest constellation is full of wonders.
All images were captured with a Seestar S50 from Amargosa Valley, Nevada, under Bortle 1 skies.
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