Letting himself in, he first consulted his notebook to find the next section of the sky due to be photographed. Then he set the appropriate direction, south of the constellation of Orion: mid-winter was the only time of the year when this particular region could be reached. The next step was to start the exposure. All that remained was to wait until the alarm clock should signal its end. There was nothing to do except sit waiting in the dark, to let his mind wander where it listed.

Jensen worked through to dawn, following one exposure with another. Even so his work was not at an end. He had still to develop the plates that had accumulated during the night. This needed careful attention. A slip at this stage would lose much hard work, and was not to be thought of.

Normally he would have been spared this last exacting task. Normally he would have retired to the dormitory, slept for five or six hours, breakfasted at noon, and only then would he have tackled the developing job. But this was the end of his ‘run’. The moon was now rising in the evening, and this meant the end of observing for a fortnight, since the nova search could not be carried on during the half of the month when the moon was in the night sky — it was simply that the moon gave so much light that the sensitive plates he was using would have been hopelessly fogged.

So on this particular day he would be returning to the Observatory offices in Pasadena, 125 miles away. The transport to Pasadena left at half past eleven, and the developing must be done before then. Jensen decided that it would be best done immediately. Then he would have four hours’ sleep, a quick breakfast, and be ready for the trip back to town.

It worked out as he had planned, but it was a very tired young man who travelled north that day in the Observatory transport. There were three of them: the driver, Rogers, and Jensen. Emerson’s run had still another two nights to go. Jensen’s friends in wind-blown, snow-wrapped Norway would have been surprised to learn that he slept as the car sped through the miles of orange groves that flanked the road.