TYCHO BRAHE

Roberto Bartali

The history of astronomy is a very interesting topic and it

is addictive, (for me). I am impressed not only by the
discoveries, the theories (many of them ridiculous for us
now) but by the people behind, in other words the
astronomers.
Their life is amazing. Copernicus, Galileo, Brahe,
Kepler, Newton and Halley lived around the two
centuries (1500 to 1700) that represent the renaissance of
Astronomy, after thousand years of cultural and
scientific lethargus in Western Europe.
Tycho Brahe was a danish astronomer, alchemist and
mathematician, was born in 1546 and died in 1601. His
real name was Tyge, but it was Latinized as Tycho.
He was the best naked eye observer of the heavens;
unfortunately he died several years before the invention
of the telescope (1609).
Figure 1 His family belongs to the nobility, so he had
Portrait of Tycho Brahe.
From: sufficient money to live without problems.
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link This is a brief description of Tycho education and
=/people/ren_epoch/brahe.html how astronomy interacts with his life:

1553-1559 he learned Latin at home.

1559 he was enrolled at University of Copenhagen for studying Rhetoric and Philosophy.
1561 he obtained his first astronomy book.
1562 he goes to Leipzig for study Laws.
1563 he starts to observe Mars and find errors in planetary tables.
1564 he built his first instrument ( a pair of wood calipers).
1566 he was enrolled at the Rostock University.
1569 he started to construct the Big Quadrant and the Big Celestial Globe in Augsburg also
begin to study alchemy.
1572 he observed the Cassiopea supernova.
1573 he published the "Nova Stella" and after the analysis of the data taken during a lunar
eclipse, he find the Sun perigee.
1574 he begin lectures at the Copenhagen University.
1575 he meet Wilhelm of Hessen (a famous astronomer).
1576 Foundation of Uraniborg in the Ven Isle, the same year he started observations here.
1577 He observed the great comet.
1578 he developed his model of the Universe.
1579-1581 he begins a systematic observation of the Moon.
1582-1597 he started meteorological systematic observations.
1584 he built his own printing press.
1587 he finished the book about comets.

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1597 The end of observations on Ven island and start the observation from Wandsbaek.
1598 he published Mecanica where there are many instrument designs.
1599 he improved his theory of the Moon movements and moved to Prague.
1601 all of his instruments installed in the palace of Curtius in Prague but he die on oct 24.
As many of the famous, he never gets a University grade.

http://www.vialattea.net/pagine/astro1/Urani2.jpg
http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/teaching/heavenly.html

The decision to study astronomy, instead laws, as his uncle and tutor wanted, was taked
after the total solar eclypse in 1560, he was impressed not only by the phenomenon, but
because somebody predicted it.
Some years later, in 1563, he observed the rare conjuntion of Jupiter and Saturn. The
astronomical tables available at that time, predicted the conjunction, but with an error of a
month. Soon, Tycho take the decision of improve the data, but to precisely predict
planetary positions he need two things:
1 a rigorous methodology for observing and record the data
2 measurement instrumentation as precise as possible.
No one of that things was available to him, so he start to made for himself the instruments
and invented the correct methodology for obtaining the best from the instruments.

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He recorded in written form, every observation.Tycho do not known the pendulum
(invented later) so for the record of the time he used the position of the stars.
He built a big observatory, the Uraniborg, there he built also many impressive instruments,
the term impressive is for the dimensions and the precision of them.
Thank to his extraordinary ability in mathematics and patience, aided with the instruments
he built and invented, he made very precise observation of the moon, mars and comets.
The observation of mars, was the key data that used Kepler to derive the laws of planetary
motion, he was an assistant of Tycho, but he could analyze those observations only after the
death of Tycho.
The little difference in the distance of the Earth from the Sun (the orbit of the Earth is
nearly circular, with an eccentricity of 0.017) change the speed of the Moon, and he was
able to measure that little libration.
He used parallax measurement to demonstrate that stars are very far away, and applying
that to the comet of 1577, he showed that it was not a meteorological event
as Aristotle said, but an astronomical event.
The 1572 nova in the constellation of Cassiopea, was the first astronomical observation he
did, and he wrote a paper about that event.
Again, using parallax he demonstrated that really it was a star. The interpretation of the
event was as a new star, but in reality was the explosion of an old star.
He never accepted the Aristotle and Ptolomeo vision of the Universe, nor the Copernican
heliocentric model.
So, he take the best of the two (Ptolemaic and Copernican) and proposed his model. His
model survived only for a century, but every body was happy with it, because he left the
Earth at the center with the moon and the sun orbiting our planet, but all other planets are
orbiting the Sun, also comets was objects moving inside planet orbits. This way the
Catholic Church and almost all the philosophers and scientist in opposition of the
Copernican model agree with Tycho.
Tycho showed that the heavens was not static, perfect and unchanging, between 1550 and
1650 many people start to think that the Aristotle model was wrong, but only a few
"intrepid" opposites was as courageous to proof and contradict the "universal accepted
truth".
His model of the Solar System was wrong and survived until Kepler laws clearly and easily
put everything in it correct place, because he was not able to measure parallaxes for the
stars, so there was only two possible explanation for that:
1 the Earth do not move around the Sun and it is at the center of the Universe and
2 the stars are so far that it is impossible to measure any parallax because it is too small.
Only one answer is the correct and having 50% of probability to make the correct choice,
he selects the wrong one: The Earth is static at the center of the Universe. But data
collected by his meticulous observations, made using equatorial armillary spheres, can not
fit with a so simple model, so he needed the Sun at the center of the planetary system.
The equatorial and zodiacal armillary spheres let him to measure and record the position of
the planet in a direct way, without any calculation.

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Tycho Brahe astonomical instruments

Brass azimuthal quadrant, 65 centimeters in

radius. Built in 1576 or 1577, this was one of
the first instrument built at Hveen, and was used
for observations of the 1577 comet. Estimated
accuracy of 48.8 seconds of arc.

Tycho's great globe, about 1.6 meter in radius. Over

10 years in the making, this instrument came in
service in late 1580. Most of the work involved
making the hollow wooden globe as perfectly
spherical as possible, after which it was covered in
brass plates.
The globe had two primary scientific uses; it came
to be used to record the position of stars observed
by Tycho. By 1595 he had 1000 accurately
observed stars inscribed on the globe. However, it
was originally intended as a computational device.
By means of auxiliary circles, the local
azimuth/altitude coordinates, as measured with
Tycho's instruments, were converted into the
conventional celestial coordinates used to record
stellar and planetary positions.

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 Armillary sphere, 1.6 meter in radius, built
in 1581. Tycho rapidly gave up on using
large versions of classical armillary sphere,
as he found their accuracy compromised by
flexing and bending due to the great weight
of the various components. This lead to the
design of equatorial armillaries.

Triangular Sextant, about 1.6 meter in radius, built

in 1582. As Tycho's sextants grew in size, they
became fixed instruments, although Tycho's
ingenious globe mount retained a lot of the
versatility of use of smaller, conventional portable
sextants.

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Great equatorial armillary, 3 meters in diameter.
Built in 1585, this is an armillary sphere
reduced to its bare essentials, and one of
Tycho's workhorse instrument. Estimated
accuracy of 38.6 seconds of arc.

Revolving wooden quadrant, 1.6 meter in

radius, built in 1586. Estimated accuracy of
32.3 seconds of arc, based on eight reference
stars.

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 Revolving steel quadrant, 2 meters in radius.
Built in 1588. Estimated accuracy of 36.3
seconds of arc.

References

http://www.hao.ucar.edu/public/education/sp/images/tycho.html
http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/history/brahe.html
http://www.arrakis.es/~nautylus/brahe.htm
http://www.rundetaarn.dk/engelsk/observatorium/life.htm
http://www.hao.ucar.edu/public/education/sp/images/tycho.3.html