Some Fun Facts about Tycho

Tycho Brahe once held a full 1% of Denmark’s wealth and threw lavish parties.

Tycho had his own court jester, a dwarf named Jepp, whom he believed was psychic.

He has two craters named after him - Tycho on the Moon and Tycho Brahe on Mars.

He established a printing shop to produce and bind his manuscripts in his own way.

HEAT1X-TYCHO BRAHE is the name of a manned private spacecraft to be launched by Copenhagen Suborbitals.

My Death :(

I was attending a banquet in Prague when I suddenly began feeling pain in my lower abdomen. Eleven days after that banquet, I passed away on October 24, 1601. I chose not to leave the banquet, even though I was in great pain, because I felt that it was rude to leave such an event. I urged Mr. Kepler to finish "Rudolphine Tables", my star catalogue, and to promote my planetary system rather than the Copernican System. My medical examiner determined my cause of death as a kidney stone complication, until that was disproved in 1901, when my body was exhumed. After doing numerous tests on my corpse, a theory of mercury poisoning was established as my cause of death. Doctors did not know if the mercury was from my metal nose, or if I was poisoned. The two main suspects in my poisoning were Johannes Kepler and my cousin, Erik Brahe. My body currently lies in a tomb, pictured above, in the Church of Our Lady in front of Týn, in Old Town Square near the Prague Astronomical Clock.

Tycho's Inventions

Tycho build a castle on the island Hven. The castle's name was Uraniborg after the the goddess of the sky, Urania. It held an observatory, which was filled with elaborate instruments of his own design. One of these instruments was the Tychonian Quadrant. This was a very large brass quadrant, affixed to a wall. Its radius measured almost two meters and was graduated in tens of seconds. Sightings were taken along the quadrant through the small window in the opposing wall. There was also a clock, which allowed the observers to note the precise moment of observation. This invention was widely copied by other astronomers and led to improved observation equipment in the future.

Johannes Kepler

My name is Johannes Kepler, I was born on December 27, 1571 and died on November 15, 1630. I was a German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer. I helped develop the eponymous laws of planetary motion, and also provided one of the foundations for Isaac Newton's theory of universal gravitation. I highly respected Mr. Brahe, and appreciated working with him.

Tycho's Pet Moose

Tycho was also very well known for his pet moose. It is unknown what he named it, but we do know that at one point he was trying to sell it. The moose was very tame and followed Tycho everywhere. A man named Lantgrae Wilhelm raised reindeer and got talking to Tycho about his moose. Tycho had planned to sell Lantgrae his moose and then get a new one, but before he could there was a bad accident. One night the moose apparently got into the beer and drank too much. Being drunk now it climbed up the stairs in his house (I don't know why it was in his house) and then clumsily fell all the way back down. The moose broke his leg and ended up dying because they couldn't fix it and it probably got infected.

THE NOSE...

Tycho Brahe had an unfortunate event at one time. He and a guy by the name of Parsberg, got into arguments frequently at events that they both intended, over who was the best mathematician of all time. This continued for quite a while. Until one challenged the other to a duel, where Parsberg cut off Tycho's nose. He survived, but had to get an artificial one made of gold and silver (as seen below). He was know for this incident because from then on he looked silly. After his death, it was found that the nose may have also been made of copper. They found this out by digging up he grave and finding green marks on his skull. And as we know know when copper erodes it turns green.

Tycho's Star Discoveries

 The Stars!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 Tycho was a star genius, but I of course helped him out a little :P


He loved to look at the stars and one day came to the conclusion that comets are not just components of Earth's atmosphere (which is what was thought before), but that the intriguing objects we're traveling through space and only passing through our solar system and hardly ever actually entering out atmosphere.

Tycho's love for the stars lead him to discovering the first supernova. This star was in the Cassiopeia constellation, as pictured below.      A Supernova is "a massive star that undergoes a sudden, extreme increase in brightness across the electromagnetic spectrum, followed by a more gradual decrease lasting from several days to several months. Supernovae occur when a super giant star collapses suddenly at the end of its life, condensing its core material into an extremely compact mass that then undergoes a slight rebound." Tycho didn't know all that at that time, but he did observe that the star was farther away than the moon and didn't change position like the planets did. It was already know that plants orbited the sun at this time.

This lead Tycho to conclude that this supernova was a fixed star in stellar space beyond the planets. He unlike other scientists did not name it after him self but instead just named it SN 1572 : SN standing for Supernova and 1572 being the year he discovered it.

Tycho also came up with his own lunar theory. This theory was brought about when he noticed variations in the moon's longitude and lunar orbit.  It was currently thought at the time that the moon orbited on a 5 degree plane of lunar orbit. What Tycho found was that in fact the moon's  orbit fluctuated depending on what part of the orbit i was in, and actually followed a elliptical pathway around the earth instead of a circular motion.

My Ancestral Seat, the Knutstorp Castle

My Family

According to Danish law, nobles and commoners can never be formally married. In 1571, I fell in love with Kirsten, daughter of Jorgen Hansen, the Lutheran minister in Knudstrup. We had eight children, and six of them lived to adulthood. After 3 years together, Kirsten and I were allowed to have a binding morganatic marriage. My children could not inherit my noble name, coat of arms, or landholdings. Later on in our lives, my younger sister, Sophie, testified to name my children legitimate in the name of the law.

My Career

I pursued a career as an astronomer and an alchemist. I combined the geometrical benefits of the Copernican system wtih the philosophical benefits of the Ptolemiac system and created my own model of the universe, and of course named it the Tychonic system. I worked primarily without telescopes and I became known to have the most accurate astronomical observations of my time. My assistant, Johannes Kepler, used my notes to continue my legacy and derived the laws of planetary motion.

My Life

I was born Tyge Ottesen Brahe on December 14, 1546 in Scania, Denmark. I am a Danish nobleman and am interested in astronomical and planetary observations. My father is Otte Brahe and my mother is Beate Bille. I have two sisters, one younger and one older. I had a twin brother, but he died when we were very young. I attended Latin school from ages 6 to 12. At age 12, I attended theUniversity of Copenhagen.