Is Comet P/Halley of a.d. 684 Recorded in the Nuremberg Chronicle ?

See Olson R. J. M. Pasachoff J. M. , “New information on Comet P/Halley as depicted by Giotto di Bondone and other Western artists”, Astronomy and astrophysics , clxxxvii (1987), 1–11, p. 1 (also reprinted in Exploration of Halley's Comet , ed. by Grewing M. Praderie F. Reinhard R. (Berlin, 1988), 1–11); and idem, “Historical comets over Bavaria: The Nuremberg chronicle and broadsides”, in Comets of the post-Halley era (Proceedings of IAU Colloquium no. 116), ed. by Newburn R. Rahe J. (Dordrecht, 1990, in press).

“Stella crinita greci Cometem vocant indicabat perfecto tot clades tribus continuis mensibus apparuit.”.

See Mucke H. Meeus J. , Canon of solar eclipses (Vienna, 1983), 784, and Meeus J. Mucke H. , Canon of lunar eclipses (Vienna, 1979), 145, who list five lunar eclipses for 684–685, but four of these were during European daylight, while the fifth was penumbral; thus none would have been visible in Europe. Verified with the Visible universe (Parsec Software, 1989).

See Olson Pasachoff , “Historical comets over Bavaria”, n. 3, for bibliography about Schedel's sources. See also Stauber R. Hartig O. , Die Schedelsche Bibliothek (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1908), for Schedel's library and its holdings.

Peng Ho Yoke , “Ancient and medieval observations of comets and novae in Chinese sources”, Vistas in astronomy , v (1962), 127–225, pp. 169–70, cites comets in 681 and 683, and in 684 describes a comet visible from 6 September to 24 October under his no. 258. Under the same number he also describes what seems like a star on 11 November. See also Marsden B. G. , Catalogue of cometary orbits (Cambridge, Mass., 1986), 8, 32 and 45, who lists P/Halley visible from 6 September to 24 October; Vsekhsvyatskii S. K. , Physical characteristics of comets (Jerusalem, 1964), 93; and Schove D. J. , Chronology of eclipses and comets a.d. 1–1000 (Woodridge, Suffolk, 1984), 293, who lists Halley and Post-Halley in September/January. Pingré A. G. , Cométographie (Paris, 1783), who does not cite the Chronicle as a source, lists two comets in 684, if one interprets the comet mentioned on p. 334 as a continuation of the one on the previous page (perhaps these are the same comet before and after perihelion), as well as ones in 687 and 693. Hasegawa I. , “Catalogue of ancient and naked-eye comets”, Vistas in astronomy , xxiv (1980), 59–102, p. 72, lists three comets in 684 (possibly as the result of his reading of Pingré), as well as ones in 681, 683, 687 and 693.

See Olson Pasachoff , “Historical comets over Bavaria”.