TEMPORARY STARS. 213 



menon to the year 1012, modern historical criticism has, 

 however, preferred another manuscript which, as compared 

 with the former, exhibits many deviations in the dates, 

 throwing them six years back. Thus, it places the appearance 

 of this star in 1006. (See Annalse Sangallenses majores, in 

 Pertz, Monumenta Germanics historica Scriptorum^ t. i. 1826, 

 p. 81 .) Even the authenticity of the writings of Hepidannus 

 has been called into question by modern critics. The singular 

 phenomenon of variability has been termed by Chladni the 

 conflagration and extinction of a fixed star. Hind (Notices of 

 the Astron. Soc., vol. viii. 1848, p. 156) conjectures that 

 this star of Hepidannus is identical with a new star, which 

 is recorded in Ma-tuan-lin, as having been seen in China, 

 in February, 1011, between e and $ of Sagittarius. But in 

 that case there must be an error in Ma-tuan-lin, not only in 

 the statement of the year, but also of the constellation in 

 which the star appeared. 



(I) Towards the end of July, 1203, in the tail of Scorpio. 

 According to the Chinese Record, this new star was " of a 

 bluish- white colour, without luminous vapour, and resembled 

 Saturn." (Edouard Biot, in the Connaissance des Temps pour 

 1846, p. 68.) 



(m) Another Chinese observation, from Ma-tuan-lin, whose 

 astronomical records, containing an accurate account of the 

 positions of comets and fixed stars, go back to the year 613 

 B.C., to the times of Thales and the expedition of Colreus of 

 Samos. This new star appeared in the middle of December, 

 1230, between Ophiuchus and the Serpent. It dissolved 

 towards the end of March, 1231. 



(n) This is the star mentioned by the Bohemian astro- 

 nomer, Cyprianus Leovitius (and referred to under the 9th 

 star, in the year 945). About the same time (July, 1264), a 

 great comet appeared, whose tail swept over one half of the 

 heavens, and which, therefore, could not be mistaken for a 

 new star suddenly appearing between Cepheus and Cas- 

 siopeia. 



(o) This is Tycho Brahe's star of the llth of November, 

 1572, in the Chair of Cassiopeia, R. A. 3 26'; Decl. 63 3' 

 (for 1800). 



(p} February, 1578. Taken from Ma-tuan-lin. The con- 

 stellation is not given, but the intensity and radiation of the 



