SOURCE: "Tycho Brahe Lights Up the Universe," in Astronomy, Vol. 18, No. 12, December, 1990, pp. 28-35.

In the following essay, McPeak investigates Brahe's scientific accomplishments at Uraniborg and Stjerneborg, detailing the wide variety of astronomical equipment he designed for his two island observatories.

Tycho Brahe is a forgotten man. When we think of great astronomers of the past, Nicholas Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, and Galileo Galilei come to mind quickly. But what about the Dane, Tycho Brahe? Most amateur astronomers have a hard time naming his greatest accomplishments.

Despite this, Tycho was one of the all-time greats in science. He was the first full-time astronomer, founding the great observatories Uraniborg and Stjerneborg and providing them with equipment that for its time was on the cutting-edge of technology—sextants, armillary spheres, and quadrants. Tycho was the first to apply what we think of as modern systematic and qualitative observation to astronomy. He...