Remarkably, one of the greatest observers in the history of astronomy worked without the benefit of telescopes — they had yet to be invented. As a young man, Tycho realized that the best tables predicting the times of celestial events such as planetary conjunctions were out of sync with his own meticulous observations. Tycho worked tirelessly planning and overseeing the construction of ever better instruments to measure the positions of stars and planets. Here are some links to websites that describe some of Tycho’s instruments.
The Royal Library in Copenhagen has an excellent site with images and descriptions of Tycho’s instruments.
The National Center for Atmospheric Research has an educational site on Tycho’s instruments.
The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich has information about Tycho’s star maps and globes.
You can read more about Tycho Brahe in the December 2003 issue of Astronomy.
