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TYCHO BRAHE AND THE CHANGING HEAVEN
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Tycho Brahe and the Changing Heavens

 Tycho Brahe was the last of the celestial observers of the

pretelescopic era.
 Born in 1546 to a noble Danish family, he became one of the
astronomy’s most colorful characters. lost the bridge of his
nose during a duel as a young man and wore a metal
replacement, a mix of gold, silver and copper to resemble the
color of flesh.
 Tycho was drawn to astronomy as a teenager and was
particularly influenced by a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn
that took place in 1563.
 He Noticed that the old planetary tables from 13th century,
based on Ptolemy’s model were days off in predicting event.
 This spurred his interest in building instruments and making
more accurate measurements.
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Tycho Brahe and the Changing Heavens

In Ptolemy's geocentric model of the universe, the

Sun, the Moon, and each planet orbit a stationary
Earth.

Ptolemaic system
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Tycho Brahe and the Changing Heavens

 By 1572 his skills were tested when a bright, star like objects suddenly appeared in the sky
within the constellation Cassiopea.
 Rivaling the planet Venus, it gradually faded to yellow and then red, until it disappeared
altogether 16th months later. We know that it is supernova- The explosion of a star, a rare
sight to the unaided eye Written records list fewer than a dozen bright supernovae in the last
two thousand years.
 Through the appearance of this new star, Tycho periodically pegged its position to see
Whether it was moving. No parallax was sighted, leading Tycho to conclude that the stellar
Interloper was located father out than the moon and likely resided among the fixed star.
 Here was a direct challenge to the long standing view that the celestial sphere never changed.
 Tycho wrote of his observations in De nova et nullius aevi memoria prius visa stella ( On the
New and Never Previously Seen Star.
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Tycho Brahe and the Changing Heavens

 Within 5 years a comet appeared and again Tycho studied the visitor meticulously.
 He determined it was not an atmospheric phenomenon, the result of friction as the realm of
fire rubbed up against the ether as Aristotle taught, but an object effortlessly passing
through the invisible spheres then thought to transport the planets around the Earth, putting
the mechanism into doubt.
 He determined that the comet moved around the sun, just outside the Orbit of Venus.
 Plotting out circular orbit, though Tycho had to Conclude that the comet moved irregularly.
 Uniformity was restored If the orbit was “not exactly circular but somewhat oblong, like a
figure commonly called oval,” he wrote in his thick tome on the comet, De mundi aetheri
recentioribus phaenomenis ( Concerning the New Phenomena in the Ethereal World).
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Tycho Brahe and the Changing Heavens

 In 1580 Tycho completed construction of grand observatory the first kind in Christian Europe
on the island of Hven .
 This island was granted to him by King Frederick II and he presided over it as affairs like a
dominating feudal lord and Tycho called his observatory Uraniborg, “Heavenly Castles,” and
by 15n4 expanded its operations to include a satellite observatory called Stjernebong, or
“castle of the stars.”
 This enabled Tycho and his staff of assistants to carry out with the naked eye the most
accurate measurements of planetary motions to date, to within one-sixtieth of a degree.
 He also measured the timing of the year to within one second, determined how starlight was
refracted by the Earth’s atmosphere and obtained the first accurate precession rate.
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Tycho Brahe and the Changing Heavens

Uraniborg
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Tycho Brahe and the Changing Heavens

Tycho's brass azimuthal quadrant, 65 centimeters in

radius, was built in 1576 or 1577. It was one of the
first instruments built at Hveen, and was used for
observations of the 1577 comet. It had a estimated
accuracy of 48.8 seconds of arc.

1576 Brass Azimuthal Quadrant

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Tycho Brahe and the Changing Heavens

 In history of astronomy Tycho is a transitional figure between Medieval and Renaissance eras.
His findings on both the new star of 1572 and the comet were revolutionary helping
astronomy break away from Aristotelian Physics, he remained quite conservative when it
came into cosmic models.
 He stubbornly stayed in the earth centred universe camp, but with a twist. He established his
own model of the cosmos in which the earth was at rest but all the other planets circled the
sun. The sun in turn revolved around the earth. On his deathbed Tycho pleaded with Kepler to
carry on his research within the Tychonic system of the Universe, not the Copernican.
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Tycho Brahe and the Changing Heavens

a model for planetary motion devised by Tycho

Brahe in which the earth is stationary and at the
center of the planetary system, the sun and moon
revolve around the earth, and the other planets
revolve around the sun.

Tychonic system
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Tycho Brahe’s greatest legacy to the world of stronomy

His observations of the supernova in 1572 and of the comet 1577/1578 were
groundbreaking discoveries that have impacted on our view on space and stars ever
since. His particularly accurate measurements and observations serve as the basis for the
following generations of scientists.
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