Astrometry of the 1572 supernova (B Cassiopeiae)

Abstract

Abstract. Contemporary European measurements of the Milky Way supernova of 1572 (B Cas) have been analyzed to compute a modern position for the star in 1572. This work adds to that done by previous 20th-century authors by using a new procedure and previously unused astrometry by 16th-century European observers. Comparison is made with earlier analyses and to modern positional data on the supernova remnant (3C 10).

Newly Determined Explosion Center of Tycho’s Supernova and the Implications for Proposed Ex-Companion Stars of the Progenitor

“…The celestial position of Tycho's supernova has been derived by many prior workers (Hind 1861;Argelander 1864;Bohme 1937;Baade 1945;Green 2004), with the positions summarized in Table 5 of Green (2004). These works have been aimed at identifying the area of the sky to look for a SNR, as well as to understand the historical observations.…”

A new look at the position of the 1604 Supernova (V843 Ophiuchi)

“…As noted elsewhere (e.g., Brahe 1602, p. 341;Thoren 1990;Green 2004), even when a straight-edged instrument is securely fixed (i.e., not handheld), such alignments are fraught with problems due to parallax inherent by the eye moving along the edge connecting the celestial objects and due to the constant diurnal motion of the sky. The only hope to get some reasonable convergence to the true location of the unknown object (V843 Oph, in this case) is to have as many different alignments as possible to look for a mean position.…”

“…Though Kepler stated in his 1606 tract (Caspar 1938, p. 211) that Brengger was in Alsace (where no Kaufbeuren is obvious), it is clear (from other remarks in the contemporary correspondence about the location of Kaufbeuren) that it is the city of that name in Bavaria, southwest of Augsburg and southeast of Memmingen; perhaps Brengger was temporarily in Alsace on 1605 Jan. 29, the date given by Kepler. Discussion on the types of instruments used, on the historical methodology employed, and on the identification of reference stars can be found in my recent paper on the position of the 1572 supernova (Green 2004). Although Bayer's 1603 Uranometria had been in print for a year when the supernova first appeared, the Greek-letter designation system for naked-eye stars had not yet been accepted, and all observers used the customary Ptolemaic/Copernicancatalogue designations, in which stars were identified by their location within the actual figure of a constellation (see Table 1).…”

“…15.3). In this manner, the differential refraction is determined for the reference objects, and then the supernova position is calculated from this using the method outlined in Appendix A of Green (2004). Then, eq.…”

Astrophysics in 2005

“…Kepler (V 843 Oph p SN 1572 p 3C 358) and Tycho (p B Cas p SN 1604 p 3C 10) each received a paper focussed on using the full range of original observations to confirm that all those p signs are true (Green 2004(Green , 2005b.…”