NATS 1745 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Tycho Brahe, Semi-Major And Semi-Minor Axes, Mysterium Cosmographicum
22 Jul 2017
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His contribution has to do with his observations. Built a couple of observatories, with very accurate instruments. Given funding and an estate there by the king of denmark (frederick ii) Built large astronomical instruments (sextant, armillary sphere) First one to start making multiple observations to ensure accuracy. Accumulated a lot of data throughout his life: Star map of cassiopeia constellation, showing the position of the supernova of 1572 (in his book, de nova stella) 1573, small book on his observations of the new (cid:1441)star(cid:1442) Observations and drawings of comets (the comet of 1577) in sagittarius constellation. Didn"t fully endorse it, but did endorse it to a degree. Still called in to question the theories of the time. His nova called into question the idea that the heavens were eternal and unchanging (aristotle(cid:1442)s philosophy) but brahe showed that a new star" suddenly appeared, hadn"t been there before. Didn"t draw any strong conclusions about the nature of the universe from it.
