I can confirm, it's the Great Comet of 1680. I found the comet data online and imported it in the Stellarium pc program. I set the place to Durham and the date to 1680/12/15. The comet is like a fixed point right under the tail of Aquila, near the horizon, at W-SW. At about 16:30, the tail of the comet starts to form, like a vertical straight line right over the comet itself (a "pillar of light"), and at 16:48 the tail cut in half the Aquila and touches the Sagitta constellation. (From the simulation it doesn't quite reach the Cygnus const.). At about 17:20 it starts going below the horizon. Here is a screenshot i.imgur.com/m02HHJ8.png
I did the same with SkySafari and found I could match the position you show by setting the date to December 25 which is the date you have Stellarium set for, not December 15. The 10 day difference is due to the use of the Julian Calendar in 1680 which differed by the Gregorian Calendar we use today by 10 days at that time? I think that’s about right. So the letter writer’s Dec 15 (Old Style) is our Dec 25 (New Style). The comet had just passed perihelion on Dec 18 (New Style) and was beginning to climb into the evening sky. While the times he mentions are about right, they would have not had standard time back then, so was he using local Durham time? Or would he have used Greenwich Time if he had a clock set to that time to use in making scientific observations? Wish we could get a Great Comet like that one in our time!
Gottfried Kirch discovered it (although Eusebio Kino, charted its course) and it was visible from November of that year until March. (Source: Broom Stars and Celestial Simitars: The Greatest Comets in History; DAJ Sargeant [2008])
My favorite part of White Gloves of Destiny is that the Royal Society has all these great tidbits that probably haven’t seen the light of day in decades or centuries but yet are still interesting. Keep it up!
The authors of the two letters may have been completely forgotten, even by their descendants. But now due to a totally random choice of old catalogue cards, people are talking about them for the first time in hundreds of years.
I have found a description of the same comet (the Great Comet of 1680) a while ago, in the church records of a German village. Here's an English translation. This description of the Great Comet of 1680 was recorded by pastor Henricus Stippius. From the church records of Battenfeld, Germany, translated from German: "Noteworthy events -- In the year 1680, the 17th day of December at the start of the night, a terrible comet was seen through all of Europe and the surrounding countries (as we would learn thereafter). The star is small, but fiery, and yet dark. The rod is next to the star, and also fiery in appearance, but somehow pale. From appearance it was two steps wide, the length stretched across half of our horizon. The star was standing to the south west approximately, the rod was shining northwards, and the star was seen for about 2 hours, the rod though could be seen 1 1/2 hours longer. In short, the appearance has been very gruesome (for some 30 days, it kept shining more diffuse, then lighter, then darker), and it would be desirable if all people took this terrible rod of god's wrath to their hearts, and if it made them turn away from their sins and godless character, leading them to a new and penitent life, in the confidence that the almighty and good Lord would once turn this lurking danger and punishment of wrath into mercy by means of his eternal wisdom. And, instead of the smoking punishment, would shower everything with His mild, graceful blessing, which the Highest would give and do for the sake of our beloved Jesus. Amen." The first half of the text shows a desire to describe the appearance as vividly as possible. The second half shows how a cleric would have interpreted the phenomenon at the time. I find the description remarkably accurate (well, until he drifts into fire and brimstone). I am also impressed that he was aware of observations made far away ("through all of Europe"). One often underestimates how well connected people were during the early modern period. It is quite possible that this pastor in a small village in central Germany learned about the observations made in England for the Royal Society.
People have already identified the comet as The Great Comet of 1680/Newton's Comet/Kirch's Comet, but is there anyone out there with The British Museum who can tell us what happened to the bezoar!?
As I'm just some dude in the UA-cam comments with no prospect of ever appearing on Objectivity, I'd like to request a special episode of White Gloves of Destiny. Ever since your first White Gloves video I've wondered what the FIRST and LAST entries were in the catalog. These entries are not special at all, except they happen to be the alpha and omega of the Royal Society's collection. Ergo, I keep my fingers crossed for such an episode to appear. Either way, I love your channel. -Alex
This was a great video. I think the idea of crowd sourcing to ID the comet was amazing. One might wonder if this is a viable means of going through old archives to try and ID other celestial phenomenon and events??!??!
Look at zooniverse, it's an online collection of lots of active citizen science projects, like finding exoplanets from graphs, or comets and asteroid from photos, but also transcribing old diaries, scientific logs and criminal records
After that recent discovery of Milton's copy of Shakespeare, I've been wondering if someone should create a crowdsourced search project, showing people random pairings of archive handwriting to see if they look similar.
On hairballs... The medical term is "trichobezoar" which is about as literal translation as you can get. In ruminants (rabbits, cows, horses, etc) they can get quite substantial and hard as a rock.
What an interesting episode! "This stone killed a horse, so we're going to use it as medicine." Loved the vivid comet description, and all the beautiful penmanship.
The reason to give such importance to a horse, or rather horse health was that armies and economies literally ran on horse back. The beginning of veterinary science was horse keeping more than animal husbandry. Up to the late XIX century and early XX century in many places medical schools and veterinary schools were deeply intertwined
C/1680 V1, also called the Great Comet of 1680, Kirch's Comet, and Newton's Comet, has the distinction of being the first comet discovered by telescope. It was discovered by Gottfried Kirch and was one of the brightest comets of the seventeenth century.
The sudden appearance of an omasum inside the horse was probably what killed it: an early case of organ transplant rejection. The "Via Lackea" was actually the Via Lactea, now better known as the Milky Way, our galaxy.
Horses can develop stones in their intestines, though, called enteroliths. Considering how much English (and anatomical knowledge) has changed in the last 400 years, it wouldn't surprise me if their definition of omasum was slightly different from ours.
Because paper is so fragile, you don't handle them with cloth gloves. It is too easy for the cloth to catch on the paper, and it is hard to handle and separate the pages wearing cloth gloves, which leads to more and rougher handling. Clean, dry hands, largely free of oils and dirt, are better all-round. If documents are really valuable, then powder-free nitrile gloves are used. They are thin enough not to make handling paper that much more difficult. The 'White gloves of destiny' thing is a gimmick - although cloth gloves are used when handling artifacts other than paper.
@@ObjectivityVideos Well this is embarrassing I just power watched your whole channel in 3 weeks and I didn't notice that. Ah "A to Z - Objectivity #39", the one where Keith brought them to the reading room. Ooo, right, wind prediction, I remember it now. Thanks for doing it!
When they say “no pictures”, what they are really saying is that stupid people like Brady aren’t going to be interested. Intelligent people: I’m curious and would like to learn more by reading about it. Brady: Ooooh look! Something shiny and superficial! Hey Kaiyth, do you have any pop up books?
The sudden appearance of an omasum inside the horse was probably what killed it: an early case of organ transplant rejection. The "Via Lackea" was actually the Via Lactea, now better known as the Milky Way, our galaxy.
I can confirm, it's the Great Comet of 1680. I found the comet data online and imported it in the Stellarium pc program. I set the place to Durham and the date to 1680/12/15. The comet is like a fixed point right under the tail of Aquila, near the horizon, at W-SW. At about 16:30, the tail of the comet starts to form, like a vertical straight line right over the comet itself (a "pillar of light"), and at 16:48 the tail cut in half the Aquila and touches the Sagitta constellation. (From the simulation it doesn't quite reach the Cygnus const.). At about 17:20 it starts going below the horizon. Here is a screenshot i.imgur.com/m02HHJ8.png
Beautifully done
Guido Ferri Brilliant. You’ve earned 10 Masterclass Geek Points. 🤓🤓🤓
Stupendous!
I did the same with SkySafari and found I could match the position you show by setting the date to December 25 which is the date you have Stellarium set for, not December 15. The 10 day difference is due to the use of the Julian Calendar in 1680 which differed by the Gregorian Calendar we use today by 10 days at that time? I think that’s about right. So the letter writer’s Dec 15 (Old Style) is our Dec 25 (New Style). The comet had just passed perihelion on Dec 18 (New Style) and was beginning to climb into the evening sky. While the times he mentions are about right, they would have not had standard time back then, so was he using local Durham time? Or would he have used Greenwich Time if he had a clock set to that time to use in making scientific observations? Wish we could get a Great Comet like that one in our time!
@@alandyer910 Yeah, I didn't notice that it was 25 dec, but I found an old-new style date converter and 15 dec 1680 now should be 25 dec
Brady: "let's figure out what comet that was"
Keith: "and we need to find that horse stone!!"
Now that's a man with solid priorities!
....so are we still working on the horse stone? lol
And conviction
It would have been the Great Comet of 1680, also known as Newton's Comet and Kirch's comet.
Gottfried Kirch discovered it (although Eusebio Kino, charted its course) and it was visible from November of that year until March. (Source: Broom Stars and Celestial Simitars: The Greatest Comets in History; DAJ Sargeant [2008])
Also I am amazed that I am the first to make this comment! Yay!
dammit, you figured it out just before I did.
@@Thumbsupurbum Probably only by seconds. I grabbed the book as soon as I heard the word 'comet.'
Apparently it was the first comet to be discovered by telescope.
My favorite part of White Gloves of Destiny is that the Royal Society has all these great tidbits that probably haven’t seen the light of day in decades or centuries but yet are still interesting. Keep it up!
And we've still barely even scratched the surface!
The authors of the two letters may have been completely forgotten, even by their descendants. But now due to a totally random choice of old catalogue cards, people are talking about them for the first time in hundreds of years.
@@ObjectivityVideos :That comment makes me a very happy man.
The quality of your videos are brilliant.
I have found a description of the same comet (the Great Comet of 1680) a while ago, in the church records of a German village. Here's an English translation. This description of the Great Comet of 1680 was recorded by pastor Henricus Stippius.
From the church records of Battenfeld, Germany, translated from German:
"Noteworthy events -- In the year 1680, the 17th day of December at the start of the night, a terrible comet was seen through all of Europe and the surrounding countries (as we would learn thereafter). The star is small, but fiery, and yet dark. The rod is next to the star, and also fiery in appearance, but somehow pale. From appearance it was two steps wide, the length stretched across half of our horizon. The star was standing to the south west approximately, the rod was shining northwards, and the star was seen for about 2 hours, the rod though could be seen 1 1/2 hours longer. In short, the appearance has been very gruesome (for some 30 days, it kept shining more diffuse, then lighter, then darker), and it would be desirable if all people took this terrible rod of god's wrath to their hearts, and if it made them turn away from their sins and godless character, leading them to a new and penitent life, in the confidence that the almighty and good Lord would once turn this lurking danger and punishment of wrath into mercy by means of his eternal wisdom. And, instead of the smoking punishment, would shower everything with His mild, graceful blessing, which the Highest would give and do for the sake of our beloved Jesus. Amen."
The first half of the text shows a desire to describe the appearance as vividly as possible. The second half shows how a cleric would have interpreted the phenomenon at the time.
I find the description remarkably accurate (well, until he drifts into fire and brimstone). I am also impressed that he was aware of observations made far away ("through all of Europe"). One often underestimates how well connected people were during the early modern period. It is quite possible that this pastor in a small village in central Germany learned about the observations made in England for the Royal Society.
Keith is a national treasure.
No.
Kieth is a world treasure.
@@seanehle8323 No.
Keith is a universal treasure.
Royal treasure?
Keith: "Yeah we got lots of books."
It's obviously not the US...
People have already identified the comet as The Great Comet of 1680/Newton's Comet/Kirch's Comet, but is there anyone out there with The British Museum who can tell us what happened to the bezoar!?
Russ Epp-Leppel The log reads “Purchased by a Prof.Severus Snape for the sum of 3 galleons 6 sickles 298 knuts on 31 Oct 94.”
Loved it!
Brady always complains when there are no pictures, yet I genuinely love seeing the different handwriting and typography from history!
8:10 All three of them looking down, cuts to a shot of all three of them looking at Brady.
That's some nice horror movie editing right there.
The comet is beautifully described. And appropriate for two people who make videos about books.
As I'm just some dude in the UA-cam comments with no prospect of ever appearing on Objectivity, I'd like to request a special episode of White Gloves of Destiny. Ever since your first White Gloves video I've wondered what the FIRST and LAST entries were in the catalog. These entries are not special at all, except they happen to be the alpha and omega of the Royal Society's collection. Ergo, I keep my fingers crossed for such an episode to appear.
Either way, I love your channel.
-Alex
We’ve done that.
This was great everyone
Rest in peace little horse, your memory lives on in the hearts of objectivity viewers.
Best book-sniffing adventure ever. Thanks Brady!
Their enthusiasm is palpable.
Lol the squeaking door spooked my cockatiel
Wait, horses don't have omasums 🤨
Maybe it was a cow after all ;-)
Fascinating!
this is actually cool format, to make it a competition was a good idea :) you should make more like this but sparingly :)
This was a great video. I think the idea of crowd sourcing to ID the comet was amazing. One might wonder if this is a viable means of going through old archives to try and ID other celestial phenomenon and events??!??!
Look at zooniverse, it's an online collection of lots of active citizen science projects, like finding exoplanets from graphs, or comets and asteroid from photos, but also transcribing old diaries, scientific logs and criminal records
After that recent discovery of Milton's copy of Shakespeare, I've been wondering if someone should create a crowdsourced search project, showing people random pairings of archive handwriting to see if they look similar.
This could be an awesome game show.
There might not have been pictures in the stone letter but it still was very graphic, I think that makes Steph the winner.
A gross ball of muck in the hand is better than a ball of dusty rock and ice in the sky.
On hairballs... The medical term is "trichobezoar" which is about as literal translation as you can get. In ruminants (rabbits, cows, horses, etc) they can get quite substantial and hard as a rock.
Would we call that Thumb Wars of Destiny?
Yes. Yes we would, Mark.
What an interesting episode! "This stone killed a horse, so we're going to use it as medicine." Loved the vivid comet description, and all the beautiful penmanship.
It's Kirch's Comet, or Newton's Comet, aka C/1680 V1
Of course Steph won. If Logan won, it would just be beating a dead horse.
Northtonshire presumably an abbreviation of Northamptonshire.
If you can't find the horse hairball, my cat offers up some on the regular if you'd like an example.
The reason to give such importance to a horse, or rather horse health was that armies and economies literally ran on horse back. The beginning of veterinary science was horse keeping more than animal husbandry.
Up to the late XIX century and early XX century in many places medical schools and veterinary schools were deeply intertwined
C/1680 V1, also called the Great Comet of 1680, Kirch's Comet, and
Newton's Comet, has the distinction of being the first comet discovered
by telescope. It was discovered by Gottfried Kirch and was one of the
brightest comets of the seventeenth century.
Team Comet blasting off agaaaaaaiiiinn!
IT'S A BEZOAR. Maybe a choke, because it was a horse.
@2m13s: Squeaky door, followed by, "All right." "Here we are." "All right." "Okay..."
a very wise surf guru answer to the competition there by referee keith
The sudden appearance of an omasum inside the horse was probably what killed it: an early case of organ transplant rejection. The "Via Lackea" was actually the Via Lactea, now better known as the Milky Way, our galaxy.
So Keith said Logan's score could be adjusted if the comet was identified. We need a readjudication, Brady.
A small piece of the comet fell to Earth and was eaten by the horse
Great comments on this one... Keith seems a little flirty this time, can’t blame him... lol...
I guess none of them are Harry Potter fans, as none of them knew what a bezoar was.
Keith is so cool
11:17: "loser"
Wait... A horse doesn't have an omasum, does it?
No it doesn’t.
- From a guy who spent way too much time researching a possible image to show on screen!
No, but looking at the bovine images, evolution has a lot to answer for!
Horses can develop stones in their intestines, though, called enteroliths. Considering how much English (and anatomical knowledge) has changed in the last 400 years, it wouldn't surprise me if their definition of omasum was slightly different from ours.
Girls are amazing at thumb wars, I'm going to do a paper on why you will NOT beat a girl in a thumb war. Bloody impossible.
Are you going to send it to the Royal Society?
What are the most important books inside of the royal society
The Charter Book is very special to the RS.
I did not find it in Starry Night Pro
How come they have to wear white gloves to pick the card catalogue but the guy who handles the actual original documents doesn’t?
Because paper is so fragile, you don't handle them with cloth gloves. It is too easy for the cloth to catch on the paper, and it is hard to handle and separate the pages wearing cloth gloves, which leads to more and rougher handling. Clean, dry hands, largely free of oils and dirt, are better all-round.
If documents are really valuable, then powder-free nitrile gloves are used. They are thin enough not to make handling paper that much more difficult.
The 'White gloves of destiny' thing is a gimmick - although cloth gloves are used when handling artifacts other than paper.
Because the British wash their hands
This stone just killed a horse, it's probably good for your health.
Kirsch/Newton's Comet C/1680 V1
I'll take the florid description of a glowing celestial body observed by millions over the fetid, oozing contents of some nameless horse's stomach.
Repository? Is that a euphemism for rubbish bin?
This video should have been titled "Hairball vs Hairy Star"
Why does no one ever pick the very 1st card and the very last?
We did a video on the first and last already.
@@ObjectivityVideos Well this is embarrassing I just power watched your whole channel in 3 weeks and I didn't notice that. Ah "A to Z - Objectivity #39", the one where Keith brought them to the reading room. Ooo, right, wind prediction, I remember it now. Thanks for doing it!
Woah
Meanwhile: Brady looking more and more like the captain of the USS Callister by the day. When's he gonna go full Ken doll?
"Bigness"? Is that like "bigly"? I knew Trump wasn't too far off.
It wasn’t a comet, it was Uranus
Incredible, heh?
First time ever, 6 views!!😢
When they say “no pictures”, what they are really saying is that stupid people like Brady aren’t going to be interested.
Intelligent people: I’m curious and would like to learn more by reading about it.
Brady: Ooooh look! Something shiny and superficial! Hey Kaiyth, do you have any pop up books?
Gosh, thanks. - Brady
sorry, got a dislike from me for the guests. Very annoying.
The sudden appearance of an omasum inside the horse was probably what killed it: an early case of organ transplant rejection. The "Via Lackea" was actually the Via Lactea, now better known as the Milky Way, our galaxy.