Tycho Brahe

Tycho Brahe (born Tyge Ottesen Brahe) (December 14, 1546 – October 24 1601) was a Danish nobleman known primarily for his work as an astronomer and an astrologer (the two were highly related in his day), as well as an alchemist. He was granted an estate on the island of Hven and the funding to build the Uraniborg, an early research institute, where he built large astronomical instruments and took many careful measurements. As an astronomer, Tycho worked to combine what he saw as the geometrical benefits of the Copernican system with the philosophical benefits of the Ptolemaic system into his own model of the universe, the Tychonian system. His best known assistant was Johannes Kepler, who would later use Tycho's astronomical information to develop his own theories of astronomy.

Nova

On November 11, 1572, Tycho observed (from Herrevad Abbey) a very bright star which unexpectedly appeared in the constellation Cassiopeia, now named SN 1572. Since it had been maintained since antiquity that the world of the fixed stars was eternal and unchangeable (a fundamental axiom of the Aristotelian world view: celestial immutability), other observers held that the phenomenon was something in the Earth's atmosphere. Tycho, however, observed that the parallax of the object did not change from night to night, suggesting that the object was far away. Tycho argued that a nearby object should appear to shift its position with respect to the background. He published a small book, De Stella Nova (1573), thereby coining the term nova for a "new" star (we now know that Tycho's star was a supernova). This discovery was decisive for his choice of astronomy as a profession. Tycho was strongly critical of those who dismissed the implications of the astronomical appearance, writing in the preface to De Stella Nova: "O crassa ingenia. O caecos coeli spectatores" ("Oh thick wits. Oh blind watchers of the sky").

Related Topics:
November 11 - 1572 - Herrevad Abbey - Cassiopeia - SN 1572 - Antiquity - Aristotelian - Parallax - 1573 - Nova - Supernova

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Tycho's discovery was the inspiration for Edgar Allan Poe's poem, Al Aaraaf.

Related Topics:
Edgar Allan Poe - Al Aaraaf

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