Tycho Brahe Facts
Tycho Brahe Facts
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| Interesting Tycho Brahe Facts: |
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| Tycho Brahe was born at Knutstorp Castle, his family's ancestral estate, in Svalov Denmark. |
| Brahe's father was an important person in the Danish court. |
| When Brahe was two he went to live with his uncle, Jorgen Thygesen Brahe in Tosterup Castle. |
| From 1552 to 1558 he attended a Latin school. |
| In 1559, at the age of 12, he entered the University of Copenhagen where he became interested in astronomy. |
| He was intrigued by the solar eclipse of August 21, 1560 and he began to make his own studies and observations. |
| He purchased a celestial ephemeris and several books on astronomy. |
| Brahe's uncle wanted his to study law and so sent him on a study tour of Europe in 1562. |
| On December 29, 1566 he fought a duel while a student at the University of Rostock in Germany. |
| The duel resulting in Brahe losing a part of his nose and he wore a replacement of metal for the rest of his life. |
| The injury did arouse an interest in medicine and alchemy. |
| As Brahe continued his studies in astronomy he realized the necessity of methodical, systematic observations. |
| He observed the sky night after night using the most accurate instruments he could find. |
| In some cases he improved existing instruments or invented new ones to suit his purposes. |
| Unfortunately the telescope was not available to him. |
| On November 11, 1572 he noted a very bright star that suddenly appeared in Cassiopeia. |
| This star is now named SN 1572 and is a supernova. |
| In 1573 he published De nova stella, in which he coined the term "nova." |
| In 1574 he published his observations from his first observatory at Herrevad Abbey. |
| In 1576 King Frederick II of Denmark funded an observatory for him on the island of Hven. |
| From 1576 to 1597 this observatory was a research center for almost 100 students. |
| He moved to Prague in 1599 and built a new observatory under the sponsorship of Rudolf II. |
| Brahe's assistant was the noted astronomer Johannes Kepler who inherited Brahe's books. |
| Kepler used Brahe's observations to formulate his laws of planetary motion and support his heliocentric model of the solar system. |
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