Well i thought we could have made a bit more of his kind of artisan interests in terms of instrument making. He's very unusual as an obelman to be academically interested in astronomy and undertaking all the observation he does but he's very as fast i understand it. It's more emiss territory than mine involved in creating or refining his instruments of observation which for an obelman is quite an extreme thing to do yeah absolutely. His instruments are so central to his enterprise not just because they produce the data from which he's going to um come up with his theoretical claims but they're also a really valuable means of presentation.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the pioneering Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546 – 1601) whose charts offered an unprecedented level of accuracy.
In 1572 Brahe's observations of a new star challenged the idea, inherited from Aristotle, that the heavens were unchanging. He went on to create his own observatory complex on the Danish island of Hven, and there, working before the invention of the telescope, he developed innovative instruments and gathered a team of assistants, taking a highly systematic approach to observation. A second, smaller source of renown was his metal prosthetic nose, which he needed after a serious injury sustained in a duel.
The image above shows Brahe aged 40, from the Atlas Major by Johann Blaeu.
With
Ole Grell
Emeritus Professor in Early Modern History at the Open University
Adam Mosley
Associate Professor of History at Swansea University
and
Emma Perkins
Affiliate Scholar in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge.