134 SPECIAL RESULTS IN THE URANOLOGICAL PORTION 



I learned that in Germany, waggoners, and ( other common 

 people/ first called the attention of astronomers to this great 

 celestial phsenomenon, which (as in the case of comets 

 appearing without having been predicted) renewed the usual 

 scoffs at learned men." 



" I found this new star," Tycho Brahe continues, " with- 

 out any tail, not surrounded by any nebulous appearance, 

 and perfectly similar in all respects to all the other fixed 

 stars, but sparkling still more brightly than those of the 

 1st magnitude. It exceeded in brilliancy Sirius, a Lyrse, 

 and Jupiter, and could only be paralleled by the brightness 

 of Venus when she is nearest the Earth, (at which time only 

 her fourth part is illuminated). When the atmosphere was 

 clear, men gifted with keen sight could distinguish the new 

 star in the day-time, and even at noon. At night, when the 

 sky has been so far covered that all other stars were veiled, 

 it has repeatedly been seen through clouds of moderate 

 density (nubes non admodum densas). Distances from 

 other neighbouring stars in Cassiopeia, which I measured 

 with great care throughout the whole of the following year, 

 convinced me of its perfect immobility. In December 157&, 

 the light of the star began to diminish: it soon became 

 equal to Jupiter; and in January 1573 it was less bright 

 than that planet. Continued photometric estimations gave, 

 in February and March, an equality with the stars of the 

 1 st magnitude (stellarum afnxamm primi honoris ; for Tycho 

 Brahe seems determined never to use the expression of 

 Manilius, stellse fixse) ; for April and May, light equal to 

 stars of the 2d; for July and August, of the 3d; and 

 for October and November, of the 4th magnitude. About 

 the month of November, the new star was no brighter than 



