In 1876 a temporary star appeared in the
constellation Cygnus, and attained at one time the brightness of the
second magnitude. Its spectrum and its behavior resembled those of its
immediate predecessor. In 1885, astronomers were surprised to see a
sixth-magnitude star glimmering in the midst of the hazy cloud of the
great Andromeda Nebula. It soon absolutely disappeared. Its spectrum
was remarkable for being ``continuous,'' like that of the nebula
itself. A continuous spectrum is supposed to represent a body, or a
mass, which is either solid or liquid, or composed of gas under great
pressure. In January, 1892, a new star was suddenly seen in the
constellation Auriga. It never rose much above the fourth magnitude,
but it showed a peculiar spectrum containing both bright and dark
lines of hydrogen.
But a bewildering surprise was now in store; the world was to behold
at the opening of the twentieth century such a celestial spectacle as
had not been on view since the times of Tycho and Kepler. Before
daylight on the morning of February 22, 1901, the Rev. Doctor
Anderson, of Edinburgh, an amateur astronomer, who had also been the
first to see the new star in Auriga, beheld a strange object in the
constellation Perseus not far from the celebrated variable star Algol.
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