212 COSMOS. 



(ff) March, 393. This star was also in Scorpio, in the tail of 

 that constellation. From the Records of Ma-tuan-lin. 



(A) The precise year ( 827 ) is doubtful. It may with 

 more certainty be assigned to the first half of the ninth century, 

 when in the reign of Caliph Al Mamoun the two famous Arabian 

 astronomers, Haly and Giafar Ben Mohammed Albumazar 

 observed at Habylon a new star, whose light, according to 

 their report, " equalled that of the moon in her quarters.'' 

 This natural phenomenon likewise occurred in Scorpio. The 

 star disappeared after a period of four months. 



(*) The appearance of this star (which is said to have 

 shone forth in the year 945, under Otho the Great), like 

 that of 1264, is vouched for solely by the testimony of the 

 Bohemian astronomer Cyprianus Leovitius, who asserts that 

 he derived his statements concerning it from a manuscript 

 chronicle. He also calls attention to the fact, that these two 

 phenomena (that in 945 and that in 1264) took place between 

 the constellations of Cepheus and Cassiopeia, close to the 

 Milky Way, and near the spot where Tycho Brahe's star 

 appeared in 1572. Tycho Brahe (Progym,, pp. 331 and 709) 

 defends the credibility of Cyprianus Leovitius, against the 

 attacks of Pontanus and Camerarius, who conjectured that the 

 statements arose from a confusion of new stars with long- 

 tailed comets. 



(k) According to the statement of Hepidannus, the monk 

 of St. Gall (who died A.D. 1088, whose annals extend from 

 the year A.D. 709 to 1044), a new star of unusual magnitude 

 and of a brilliancy that dazzled the eye (oculos verberans), 

 was, for three months, from the end of May in the year 1012, 

 to be seen in the south, in the constellation of Aries. In 

 a most singular manner it appeared to vary in size, and 

 occasionally it could not be seen at all. " Nova Stella 

 apparuit insolitae magnitudinis, aspectu fulgurans et oculos 

 verberans non sine terrore. Q,iie mirum in modum ali- 

 quando contractior, aliquando diffusior, etiam extinguebatur 

 interdum. Visa est autem per tres menses in intimis finibus 

 Austri, ultra omnia signa quae videntur in coelo." (See Hepi- 

 danni Annales breves, in Duchesne, Historic Francorum 

 Scriptores, t. iii. 1641, p. 477. Compare also Schnurrer, 

 Chronik der Seuchen, th. i. s. 201). To the manuscript made 

 use of by Duchesne and Goldast, which assigns the pheno 



