Otte Brahe, his father, was from the Danish nobility Beate Bille, Tycho's mother, also came from an important family which had produced leading churchmen and politicians. Tycho Brahe was brought up by his paternal uncle Jorgen Brahe and became his heir.
He was sent by his family to study in Copenhagen, then to Leipzig to study law, but also studied a variety of other subjects and became interested in astronomy. In 1565 and 1566 Tycho studied mathematics at the universities in Wittenburg and Rostock.
He began making observations and by August 1563, while still at the University of Leipzig, he began to keep a record of these observations. The second observation he recorded was a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn which proved significant for Tycho's subsequent career.
In spring 1569, he arrived in Augsburg, where he spent 14 months learning how to make high-precision astronomical instruments. His ambition was to build instruments allowing him to make observations true to within one arc minute (one-sixtieth of a degree).
Tycho's reputation as an accomplished astronomer rose quickly, primarily through his
observations of and writings on the 1572 novae in Cassiopea, and of the 1577 comet.
On November 11, 1572 Tycho observed the new star in Cassiopeia. Observing the night sky from an uncle’s home, Tycho was amazed to see a new light brighter than Venus in the sky. In 1573, Tycho’s name became well-known in astronomical circles when he published De nova stella – The New Star.
In 1598 was appointed Imperial Mathematician to the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II. Tycho Brahe's contributions to astronomy were enormous. He not only designed and built instruments, he also calibrated them and checked their accuracy periodically. He thus revolutionized astronomical instrumentation.
His astronomical research program never really resumed, however. He died in Prague, Bohemia (now Czech Republic) on October 24, 1601, leaving his most recent assistant Johannes Kepler as his scientific heir.
Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) - Danish astronomer
