Abstract
The ``guest star'' of AD185, recorded in the ancient Chinese history the Houhanshu, has been widely regarded as a supernova. However, some authors have suggested that the guest star might have been a comet. It has also been proposed that the record is the concatenation of a nova with a comet made by an early compiler. We have checked the record of the guest star, comparing it with records of comets in the same history. We find that most descriptions of comets clearly indicate motion, whereas the record of the guest star does not. We further argue that the term ``yan'' used to describe the star's ``size'' might be short for yan-chuang (seat bed), and ``half a yan'' would be simply as an imaginary figuration of the ancient observer. Moreover, we show that the term ``hou -year" (hou-nian) most probably means the year after next. We argue that the asterism Southern Gate consisted of the stars α and β Cen. We conclude that the record describing the guest star of AD 185 is completely different from any comet record in the same history, and that it almost certainly was a supernova.