130 A Short History of Astronomy [Cn. v. 



appears to have taken no steps to publish, and which had 

 in consequence to be made again independently before it 

 received general recognition.* By 1586 121 stars had been 

 carefully observed, but a more extensive catalogue which 

 was to have contained more than a thousand stars was 

 never finished, owing to the unexpected disappearance of 

 Rothmann in i59ot and the death of the Landgrave two 

 years later. 



99. The work of the Cassel Observatory was, however, 

 overshadowed by that carried out nearly at the same time 

 by Tycho (Tyge) Brake. He was born in 1546 at Knudstrup 

 in the Danish province of Scania (now the southern 

 extremity of Sweden), being the eldest child of a nobleman 

 who was afterwards governor of Helsingborg Castle. He 

 was adopted as an infant by an. uncle, and brought up 

 at his country estate. When only 13 he went to the 

 University of Copenhagen, where he began to study 

 rhetoric and philosophy, with a view to a political career. 

 He was, however, very much interested by a small eclipse 

 of the sun which he saw in 1560, and this stimulus, added 

 to some taste for the astrological art of casting horoscopes, 

 led him to devote the greater part of the remaining two 

 years spent at Copenhagen to mathematics and astronomy. 

 In 1562 he went on to the University of Leipzig, accom- 

 panied, according to the custom of the time, by a tutor, 

 who appears to have made persevering but unsuccessful 

 attempts to induce his pupil to devote himself to law. 

 Tycho, however, was now as always a difficult person to divert 

 from his purpose, and went on steadily with his astronomy. 

 In 1563 he made his first recorded observation, of a close 

 approach of Jupiter and Saturn, the time of which he noticed 

 to be predicted a whole month wrong by the Alfonsine 

 Tables (chapter in., 66), while the Prussian Tables ( 94) 

 were several days in error. While at Leipzig he bought 

 also a few rough instruments, and anticipated one of the 

 great improvements afterwards carried out systematically, 



* A similar discovery was in fact made twice again, by Galilei 

 (chapter vi., 114)- and by Huygens (chapter vin., 157). 



f He obtained leave of absence to pay a visit to Tycho Brahe 

 and never returned to Cassel. He must have died between 15^9 

 and 1608. 



