At the speed of light, what they are watching could have happened at least a year or two.
You can see the nearest system to us, currently in the early morning. The Proxima Centuri system, just off the right foot of Orion at appx 4 light years. Sirius is one of the brightest stars in the sky. But alas, there’s no signal.
Heck, they didn’t even name the system of this article.