The supernovæ are the expression of the cataclysmic death of stars. These events are very energy, fugacious and extremely rare. During the history, they were observed ten time before the advent of the modern observation aids which are the telescopes. The historically attested first supernovæ are the stars hosts (``k' o-hsing ' ') observed by the Chinese. First was observed in the constellation of the Centaur on December 7 185 during one 20 months period. The duration of the visibility of this event leaves only little doubt as for its nature. Two other stars hosts were observed into 386 and 393 but their very evasive description as well as the short durations of observation do not make it possible to conclude in a final way on their real nature. The supernovæ observed at the beginning of second millenium (SN1006, SN1054 and SN1181) on the other hand were described well better. In particular, SN1006 was observed simultaneously by the Chinese, Arabic and Europeans. One observed for these three objects the remainders of the explosion whose famous nebula of Crab, remains SN1054.
The two historical last supernovæ were observed by two of the largest astronomers of the history: Tycho Brahé and Johannes Képler. Tycho Brahé, considered as one of the pioneers of observational astronomy, observed in an extremely precise way the position and the evolution of the luminosity of SN1572. These very precise observations made it possible to build the lightcurve of this supernova to determine its type of it. More significant for the time were the philosophical and scientific implications. At the time the universe was described by the ancient system aristotelician of the eight spheres. In IVème century before J.C., Plato then Aristote had imagined a closed and spherical universe whose Earth was the center. In this vision, the universe consists of 8 concentric spheres independently turning around the Earth, the 7 known planetary bodies (Sun, the Moon, Mercure, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturne) and finally largest carrying fixed stars supposed `` immutable ' '. In spite of vain efforts on behalf of holding of the old system to bring back it in on this side eighth, SN1572 brought to Tycho Brahé an irrefutable proof against this ancient vision of the universe.
The observation by its disciple Johannes Képler of SN1604, about thirty years later, did nothing but confirm the conclusions of Tycho Brahé.
For more details, one will be able to consult Montmerle1988.