Tycho Brahe's Solar Observations

Tupman G. L. , “A comparison of Tycho Brahe's meridian observations of the Sun with Leverrier's solar tables”, The observatory, xxiii (1900), 132–5, 165–71.

Curz Albert , Historia coelestis (Augsburg, 1666).

A critique of the Historia coelestis can be found in Dreyer J. L. E. , Tycho Brahe (Edinburgh, 1890), 371–2. Dreyer concludes that “The Historia coelestis gives the reader a fair idea of the general scope of Tycho's work, but it cannot be used for any scientific purpose”.

Brahe Tycho , Opera omnia, edited by Dreyer J. L. E. (15 vols, Copenhagen, 1913–29). The observational logs constitute vols x-xiii.

Wesley W. G. , “The accuracy of Tycho Brahe's instruments”, Journal for the history of astronomy, ix (1978), 42–53.

Tuckerman B. , “Planetary, lunar and solar positions, a.d. 2 to a.d. 1649”, Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, lvi (1964).

For interpolation techniques see pp. 4–7 of Tuckerman B. , “Planetary, lunar and solar positions”, Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, lix (1962).

For a chronology of Tycho's instruments see Thoren V. , “New light on Tycho's instruments”, Journal for the history of astronomy, iv (1973), 23–45.

For the completion of the solar theory see Brahe Tycho , Opera omnia, xi, 61 and vi, 165. I would like to thank Prof. V. Thoren for these references.

For a complete description of the instruments at Hven see Brahe Tycho , Astronomiae instauratae mechanica (Nuremberg, 1602). This work has been reprinted as vol. v of the Opera omnia and in an English translation by H. Raeder and others as Tycho Brahe's description of his instruments and scientific work (Copenhagen, 1946). Diagrams of the major instruments discussed in this study can be found in refs 5 and 8 above.

For a discussion of corrections for mean refraction rather than actual refraction see Wesley , op. cit., note 13.

Blank spots in the tables indicate that for that month fewer than three observations of the Sun were made with the particular instrument. There are several instances—especially in 1591 and 1595—where no solar observations were made during a month. The monthly averages in Table 1 are weighted in terms of the number of observations with each instrument.

See Wesley , op. cit., Table 1.

Opera omnia, xii, 182–3. Again I am grateful to Prof. V. Thoren for remembering the existence of this correction and suggesting that I look for it.