David H. Clark, F. Richard Stephenson Historical Supernovae

Annotation

The Historical Supernovae is an interdisciplinary study of the historical records of supernova. This book is composed of 12 chapters that particularly highlight the history of the Far East. The opening chapter briefly describes the features of nova and supernova, stars which spontaneously explode with a spectacular and rapid increase in brightness. The succeeding chapter deals with the search for the historical records of supernova from Medieval European monastic chronicles, Arabic chronicles, astrological works etc., post renaissance European scientific writings, and Far Eastern histories and diaries. Other chapters cover the classification of the Far-Easter stars, remnants of supernova, and the so-called guest star within the Southern Gate. The discussion then shifts to historical records of the Chin Dynasty Guest stars, extremely bright stars, and the birth of the Crab Nebula. The concluding chapters are devoted to historical records of star of Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler. These chapters also look into the evolution of supernova remnants. This book will be of value to students of astronomy and history of science or sinology, as well as the non-specialists.