Page:Tycho brahe.djvu/67

Rh the intricate diagrams and figures of the diary would be very troublesome to reproduce, and the year is nearly half over, so that it would not be worth while printing the diary. As to the star, he fears that the account of it is a very immature one; still he will let it be published, partly because his friend wishes it, partly because some of the German accounts of the star place it at a distance of only twelve or fifteen semi-diameters of the earth, while his own observations of its distance from Schedir (α Cassiopeae) show that it is situated in ipso cœlo. He has made his observations with a new and exquisite instrument, much better than a radius or any similar instrument, and the horizontal parallax of three or four degrees, which the star would have if it were as close to us as stated by the German writers, would have been easily detected. "O cœcos cœli spectatores!" Somebody had thought that it was a comet with the tail turned away from the earth, but that writer has forgotten what Apianus and Gemma Frisius have taught us, that the tails of comets are turned away from the sun, and not from the earth. Others thought the star was one of the tailless comets which the ancients called Crinitæ; others again that it belonged to the class called Rosæ, with a disc gradually fainter towards the edges. But it looks exactly like other stars, and nothing like it has been seen since the time of Hipparchus. It does not seem likely that it will last beyond September, or at most October (1573), and it would be far more marvellous if it remained, for things which appear in the world after the creation of the universe ought certainly to cease again before the end of the world. As his own conclusions thus differ so much from those of the German writers, he consents to let his book be printed, and sends it herewith,