Tycho Brahe

About the person...

Tycho Brahe was born December 14, 1546, in the Knutstorps castle in Skone, as at that moment belonged to Denmark and that now belongs to Sweden. He died October 24, 1601. He was mostly raised by his onkel Jörgen B. and not by his parents Otto Brahe and Beate Bille, that both were nobles. 

At the age of 13 he started to study at the university of Copenhagen. He also studied in Leipzig, Wittenberg, Rostock and Basel. After a solar eclipse in 1560 his interest for astronomy grew a lot, so mean while he was studying law - that he didn't like - he also studied astronomy, but that was something he did for himself and in secret. After showing progress with astronomy he continued with it. At the beginning he discovered new methods and instruments for high precision measuring of positions of other planets.

When he in 1572 got famous for his observation of the new star in the star picture Cassipeia the danish king wanted Brahe to stay in Denmark. Brahe decided to stay and got a lot of astronomical things that was needed, and one of the "things" was an island in Öresund were Brahe built his obsarvatory. All this things should have costed the dansih goverment more than 5% of the countries gross national product (GNP). But there occured problems between Brahe and the dansich courtiers so Brahe moved to Prag. There it went on well for Brahe. He got a own caste to live in and he got selected to imperial astronom, and there he continued his work.

 

Brahes instruments, observatorys and theories...

Tycho showed out to be a very good inventor and constructor. This he showed by constructing several thing that made it easier for an astronom. A astronom needs an instrument to measure positions and movements with the highest possible accuracy. His first instrument didn't became a succes though. It just wasn't enough accurate.

In his bok, that later made him famous all over Europe, "De stella nova", he wrtoe down his observation of a new star that were very bright. He discovered the star November 11, 1572. It was situated in the star picture Cassiopeia and Tychos measureings showed that the star was a long way from earth. After his discovery Brahe continued mesaure positions and other thing for stars and planets, that later became useful for other astronoms.

The theori about that the sun was the centre of a system and that earth and other planets like Mars rotates around the sun.But that theori didn't come from Brahe, it came in the book "De Revalutionibus Orbium" by Kopernikus. Brahes observations and data fitted in Kopernikus modell but Brahe didn't belive in Kopernikus theori så he created his own version or theory. He created a theory that was based on that the earth was still in the centre and some planets rotated around it but some other planets rotated around the sun. Aristoteles and Ptolemaios theroies - that came along time before Brahes and Kopernikus theories - was based on that the earth was the absolute centre and that all other planets, moons and even the sun was "fixed" on different "points" and rotated around the earth. That theory was at this time about to die. 
                     Brahes universe...  Kopernikus universe...

Sources: