Last October the Hubble website released an image of one of the least conspicuous dwarf galaxies in the nearby universe. UGC 12588 is a 14th magnitude 1.3 arcmin diameter dwarf galaxy near the Andromeda-Lacerta border that has unaccountably burst into life with several hundred massive, hot young stars after 10 billion years of hardly any activity at all. It is a small member of the 3-galaxy NGC 7640 Group, which resides in near-total isolation some 30 million light years away from us. The big mystery is 'why this galaxy' and 'why now'. Unraveling the complex explanation has been one of the most difficult detective stories undertaken by amateur astronomers with no access to big budgets and big telescopes. You can download and read '
The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Nobody' for free.