testimony is therefore worth nothing, and it may safely be assumed that the star became visible between the 2nd and the 6th of November, and was seen by an apparently trustworthy observer on the morning of the 6th.
That many different attempts should be made to explain the nature of the new star and the cause of its sudden appearance is very natural. Most writers contented themselves by saying that it was some sort of a comet, though not of the usual kind, as these, according to Aristotle, were sublunary, while the star was far beyond the moon. That it did not in the least look like a comet was generally not considered an objection to this theory, as instances could be quoted of comets having appeared without tails;[1] a greater difficulty was the absence of motion relatively to the other stars in Cassiopea, as only very few writers had the hardihood to maintain that it had actually moved before it disappeared.[2] Gemma sought to explain this by supposing, with Elias Camerarius, that the star was moving in a straight line away from us,[3] but this could not account for the sudden appearance of the star with its maximum brightness. Others thought it more probable that the star was not a new one, but merely an old and faint star, which had become brighter through some sudden transformation
- ↑ In a pamphlet, "La Declaration d'vn comete ou estoille prodigieuse laqvelle a commencé a nous apparoistre à Paris, en la partie Septentrionale du ciel, au mois de Nouembre dernier en l'an present 1572, & se monstre encores auiourd'huy. Par I.G.D.V.," Paris, 1572, 4to, 8pp., it is said that people who had good sight could see several rays, of which the longest, which might be called the tail of the comet, was always turned to the east! Its distance from the pole-star, when above the pole, was "le plus souvent" 25° 30′, but afterwards it became 24° 40′, and below the pole 24° 30′, which the author takes to be the effect of parallax! The author was probably Jean Gosselin de Vize, librarian to the King. The pamphlet was not known to Tycho; it is not in Lalande's Bibliographie.
- ↑ Leovitius, writing in February 1573, says it seems to him that the star had during the last month moved three degrees towards the north!
- ↑ The English astronomer, John Dee, was of the same opinion (Progymn., p. 691).
