Tycho Brahe - History of Tycho Brahe' research work

The Copernican theory was not accepted by all the astronomers. In fact, Tycho Brahe, the most famous of 16th-century astronomers, held that Ptolemy was more correct than Copernican.

Brahe, the Danish astronomer, was born in Knudstrup in southern Sweden on December 14, 1546. He inaugurated the era of precision in astronomical instruments and thus paved the way for future discoveries.

While some boys have to struggle against poverty while learning, Brahe had to struggle against riches. Being distinguished people, his parents wanted him to become a lawyer and sent him to university after university to study law. When studying law in Copenhagen a solar eclipse turned his attention to astronomy.

Since then he had a great fascination for astronomy. Though he studied law, all his heart was in the heavens. His tutor forbade him to.  Use the globe that he bought with his pocket money. But Brahe stealthily watched the sky at night through his bedroom window, with a pair of compasses as his only scientific instrument.

Telescope was not known then in 1563 he observed a close approach of Jupiter and Saturn. Through systematic observation of this phenomenon, he discovered errors in the calculations of the most famous astronomers like Ptolemy and Copernicus. He even corrected them. In 1572 he discovered a supernova in the constellation Cassiopeia. This further increased his thirst for astronomy as well as his fame.

Frederic II, the king of Denmark, hearing the fame of Brahe offered him the island of Yen near Copenhagen. He also offered a huge sum with which an observatory was built on Yen with the entire necessary astronomical instruments still telescope was not known. Brahe named the observatory Uraniborg after urama, the muse of astronomy. Uraniborg means the castle or urania or the tower of heaven. Brahe spent 20 years in it. His conclusions upset many of the prevailing ideas since the days of Aristotle.

Brahe determined the length of the year to less than a second. This led to the abandonment of the Julian calendar and the adoption of the Gregorian calendar. His observations – the most accurate possible before the invention of the telescope- included the comprehensive, study of the solar system and the accurate position of more than 777 fixed stars. He substantially corrected nearly every known astronomical record. He left all his observational data and instruments to Kepler, who became greater than his master and laid the groundwork for the works of Sir Isaac Newton.