Tycho Brahe (1546 – 1601) was a Danish nobleman, astronomer, and writer. Well known in his lifetime as an astronomer, astrologer and alchemist, he has been described as “the first competent mind in modern astronomy to feel ardently the passion for exact empirical facts.” His observations were some five times more accurate than the best available observations at the time. Brahe envisioned his castle Uraniborg as a temple dedicated to the muses of arts and sciences, rather than as a military fortress; indeed it was named after Urania, the muse of astronomy.
