A 15th-16th Century Luni-Solar Volvelle

Apologies for being so quiet lately. There’s a few things that have been on my plate recently. One of the big ones has been some research for a new video for the YouTube channel. What I thought was going to be reading 2 books and a handful of paper has turned into 6 books an undergraduate thesis, and a handful of papers. Needless to say, it’s taken much longer than expected.

However, while doing that research I encountered this image.

This is from the Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, cod. Pal. germ. 832, fol 16r (1491) and it’s a stunningly beautiful volvelle. I knew I wanted to look into it further and thought I bookmarked it, but, when I came back a few days later, I couldn’t find it. I did remember some key words, and was able to find some similar volvelles. Continue reading “A 15th-16th Century Luni-Solar Volvelle”

T CrB Eruption Found in Medieval Manuscript

The recurrent nova T CrB is likely to erupt again in the early spring of next year. This nova has an $\approx 80$ year long cycle and only lasts for about a week, making it an extremely rare event to catch. Thus, it’s no surprise that we only had reliable records for the two most recent eruptions.

But research from Dr. Bradley Schaefer indicates that there may be two historic accounts of this star during its eruption including one in a medieval chronicle.

I’ve written more about this research over at Universe Today.