t was white, and by
degrees became yellow, and in the spring of 1573 reddish, like
Aldebaran. About May, 1573, we are told somewhat enigmatically that it
"became like lead, or somewhat like Saturn," and so it remained as long
as it was visible. What a fund of information our modern spectroscopes
and other instruments would supply us with if so magnificent a star were
to burst out in these modern days!

But though we have not in our own times been favoured with a view of a
temporary star as splendid as the one seen by Tycho Brahe and his
contemporaries, it has been our privilege to witness several minor
outbursts of this kind. It seems likely that we should possess more
records of temporary stars from former times if a better watch had been
kept for them. That is at any rate the impression we get when we see how
several of the modern stars of this kind have nearly escaped us
altogether, notwithstanding the great number of telescopes which are now
pointed to the sky on every clear night.

In 1866 a star of the second magnitude suddenly appeared in the
constellation of the crown (Corona Borealis). It was first seen on the
12th May, and a few days afterwards it began to fade away. Argelander's
maps of the northern heavens had been published some years previously,
and when the position of the new star had been accurately determined, it
was found that it was identical with an insignificant looking star
marked on one of the maps as of the 9-1/2 magnitude. The star exists in
the same spot to this day, and it is of the same magnitude as it was
prior to its spasmodic outburst in 1866. This was the first new star
which was spectroscopically examined. We shall give in Chapter XXIII. a
short account of the features of its spectrum.

The next of these temporary bright stars, Nova Cygni, was first seen by
Julius Schmidt at Athens on the 24th November, 1876, when it was between
the third and fourth magnitudes, and he maintains that it cannot have
been conspicuous four days earlier, when he was looking at the same
constellation. By some inadvertence the news of the discovery was not
properly circulated, and the star was not observed elsewhere for about
ten days, when it had already become considerably fainter. The decrease
of brightness went on very slowly; in October, 1877, the star was only
of the tenth magnitude, and it continued getting fainter until it
reached the fifteenth magnitude; in other words, it became a minute
telescopi