The ship, called the Rext Suesia, was owned by a Scotsman and the log
is written in English. It is now being translated into modern English by
Christian Koninckx, a specialist in the history of shipping and chairman
of the Royal Belgian Marine Academy.

The log describes observations of a comet on four days in May 1733 as
the ship sailed round the South African coast near Cape Town. It includes
accurate drawings of the comet’s position in the constellation Orion on
each of the days it was observed.

Patrick Vanouplines, an information specialist and amateur astronomer,
has sent this information to Brian Marsden at the Smithsonian Astrophysical
Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who runs the international database
of comets.

The first published mention of the comet was in the book Inleiding tot
de Algemeene Geographie (Introduction to General Geography) by the Dutch
mathematician Nicolaas Struyck, which appeared in 1740. In 1784, the French
astronomer Alexandre Guy Pingre published another survey, Cometographie,
in which he mentioned the comet. However, he was simply citing from Struyck’s
earlier work and said only ‘some sailors had seen a bright star with a long
tail before sunset in the northwest’.

‘Because of this lack of information, it was impossible to calculate
an orbit for the comet and that resulted in the ‘loss’ of the comet in
later years,’ says Vanouplines.

But from the drawings in the rediscovered log, Marsden has been able
to calculate a preliminary orbit for the comet. ‘To do that, you need three
positions. We could offer four,’ says Vanouplines. ‘It is unique for a lost
comet to be rediscovered after such a long time,’ he adds.

The Belgian researchers propose following up their work with a careful
search through other logs and documents for observations of other comets
sighted by sailors in the southern hemisphere. ‘Maybe something new will
be found about the comet of 1733 too,’ says Vanouplines.

The majestic and complicated building was not ideal for astronomy and
Brahe later built a second, more suitable, observatory next door. With instruments
he designed or adapted himself, Brahe measured the positions of the stars
and planets with unprecedented accuracy.

In 1597, after quarrelling with the King, Christian IV, Brahe left Ven
and went to Prague, where he died in 1601. His observatories soon fell into
ruin.

Stjenborg, the second of the Ven observatories, was restored after the
Second World War. All that remains of Uraniborg is a big bowl-shaped hole
in the ground and some earth walls.

In 1984 a group of scientists urged the Swedish government to restore
Uraniborg, too. The local city council of Landskrona invited plans for restoration
and has now accepted a design by Ingvar Andersson, a landscape architect
from the Royal Academy of Art in Copenhagen.

Rebuilding the entire observatory was never an option because of the
enormous cost. Andersson’s scheme is to build an open steel structure to
show the size and position of the original building, and to restore the
badly damaged 3-metre high earth walls surrounding the observatory. Part
of the formal Renaissance gardens will also be restored.

Most importantly, visitors will be provided with exhibits and displays
about Brahe’s life and work. Brahe’s data provided Johannes Kepler with
all he needed to formulate the three basic laws of planetary motion. The
restoration will cost 6 million krona (about Pounds sterling 63.6 million).