#24N - Tycho's Alchemy - Traveling in Tycho's Footsteps - Moon Meets Venus, Mars Meets Jupiter, Earth Meets Lots of Rocks
TGT 8/1/24: This Just In--Tycho's Chem Lab; Astronomical Travel--Tycho's Historic Sites from Birth to Death; Two Photogenic Planetary Conjunctions; Best Meteor Show of the Year
Cover Photo - Uraniborg
In This Issue:
Cover Photo — Uraniborg
Welcome to Issue 24N!
Sky Planning Calendar —
* Moon-Gazing - Look Close to See the 35-Hour-Old Crescent Moon Next to Venus
* Observing—Plan-et -
- Mars and Jupiter Make an Equilateral Triangle With Aldebaran
- Best Meteor Shower of the Year, the Perseids with Perfect Sky Conditions
* Border Crossings - Match!This Just In
- Tycho Brahe, the (al)ChemistAstronomical Travel - Tycho (and Kepler) in Prague; From Tycho’s Birthplace to His Grave
Welcome to The Galactic Times Newsletter-Inbox Magazine #24N!
The two most photogenic appearances in the sky this early August are a triangle of bright “stars” (but two aren’t) in the August dawns. But watch on the right day because the equilateral-ness ends fast. Mars and Jupiter ALMOST come together at mid-month.
Venus enters the evening sky but still with some difficulty yet if you have a low and clear western horizon, on one particular night you’ll find the extremely young crescent Moon almost poking the planet. Mercury is visible in the early days of the month but then says Bye!
Finally, the usual astronomical thing to do in August is watch the Perseid meteor shower. This year, no lunar light interfering! Dark enough to also see some concurrent minor meteor streams adding to the show.
Some new history and some related travel—an unexpected finding at the remains of Uraniborg, Tycho Brahe’s great pre-telescopic observatory, and alchemy lab. From there we ask, “Can you visit Uraniborg and the sites where Tycho lived, studied or worked?” Yes, and No, and we’ll show you most of the ones that still exist.
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Note that we are taking off for a summer break in August so there will be no August 15th or September 1st issues. At least, not ‘live’ ones. Planning to send out pre-written/pre-scheduled versions of the Sky Planning Calendar and some Astronomy in Everyday Life columns I’ve been holding on to, just to keep you abreast of sky happenings.
Enjoy!
Publisher — Dr. Larry Krumenaker Email: newsletter@thegalactictimes.com
Sky Planning Calendar
Moon-Gazing
Moon passages by a star, planet or deep sky object are a good way to find a planet or other object if you’ve never located it before.
August 2 The star Pollux is 1.8-degrees North of the Moon. Pretty much the last conjunction in the dawn, because two days later is ….
August 4 … the New Moon.
August 5 The Moon passes 1.7-degrees South of Venus. From North America, look for the 35-hour-old Moon looking like a very thin backwards “C” immediately above the Moon. But look early—like around 35 minutes after the Sun’s gone down. If you live South of the Equator, this is actually much better in visibility.
August 8 Apogee. A smaller than usual crescent Moon.
August 9 and 10 In the evening, the Moon is to the right of Spica on the 9th, to the left on the 10th, but occulted by the Moon for Eastern Hemisphere dawn observers on the 10th.
August 12 First Quarter.
Observing---Plan-et
==Bright “Star” Triangle in Taurus, in the Dawn, Until Two Come REAL Close==
==Perseids Make a Summer Show, with a Supporting Cast of Minor Meteors==
Mercury transitions from evening star to morning star. You can catch a last glimpse of it in the evening during the first 4-5 days of the month. It makes the left end of a horizontal line-up with brighter Venus and dim Regulus these evenings, but it is low and hard to see during the first 35-45 minutes after Sunset when it is still quite bright out…and then it sets.
In that above opportunity Venus is only about a degree away from Regulus, to the star’s right. The Moon joins the party on the 5th, as mentioned further above. By the end of the period, Venus sets still at barely an hour at most after Sunset.
Earth-view—Perseids Meteor Shower
This mainstay of summer observation peaks on the morning of the 12th but you can see Perseid shower members roughly 3 days on either side. Nominally it can shoot up to 60, even 100, meteors an hour coming out of the northeast after midnight. This year has pretty good observation parameters; the First Quarter Moon sets as the radiant point in the constellation of Perseus rises. So the post-midnight sky will be dark for the many bright, streaky Perseid fireballs.
An interesting project is to plot the meteor trails on a star chart and find that radiant point in Perseus…and do so every night. You’ll see as we shift daily in our orbit, the radiant drifts in accordance.
There are also at least 3 minor meteor showers running so some of those meteors that *don’t* point to Perseus [which looks a lot like the Greek letter pi (π)] may not be purely random bits of space fluff but members of these other debris streams. These showers include the middling strong (25ish per hour) Delta Aquarids, coming out of the SE, the Alpha Capricornids a measly 5 per hour also from the SE, and the even weaker Kappa Cygnids which will stream mostly parallel to the Perseids.
Mars is making a nice close-to-equilateral triangle with reddish Aldebaran in Taurus and Jupiter. In fact it is about 5 degrees from both of them when the month starts, but Mars is moving swiftly towards Jupiter, towards a minimum distance on the 14th, just a 0.33-degrees away. An interesting photo shot in a telescope, with Jupiter and its moons as well in view.
Jupiter. See Mars…..
Saturn is days away from opposition, rising shortly after the Sun sets. Also, in the predawn and dawn hours it will be one of THREE bright planets AND ELEVEN first magnitude stars in the sky at the same time! Perhaps this year’s most brilliant gathering of night-sky-diamonds….
Border Crossings
Astronomically the Sun leaves Cancer for Leo on the 10th. This should make the astrologers happy. They say it has been there all the time and will be these two weeks and more. <sigh>….
This Just In
Tycho Brahe, the (al)Chemist
Reported this past week in the New York Times and CNN, archaeologists digging into the ground at the pre-telescopic Tycho Brahe’s Uraniborg observatory on the now-Swedish island of Hven (or Ven) found shards of his underground alchemy laboratory. Tycho, in addition to his then-more-precise-than-before observational astronomy measures, cast horoscopes for income and did alchemy experiments, mostly in trying to reproduce ancient medicines.
Uraniborg was created in 1576 and its neighboring adjunct site Stjerneborg in 1586. In actual practice it was essentially not just an observatory but perhaps the first science research center in Europe. There was more than just his world’s-largest quadrant for his star and planet position measures [1 minute of arc accuracy, greater than most persons can detect] but several other observing devices (but no telescope, not invented yet), living quarters, a paper-making facility, a jail and other services, and apartments for Tycho and for visitors, such as Danish King Frederick II, his friend and patron.
But Frederick died in 1588. His son and heir, a mere child, grew up into Christian IV, a King far more interested in warfare than science. With regents and staff not liking all the patronage that Frederick gave Tycho, even with his widowed Queen in support, Uraniborg became doomed. Once Christian came of age, he soon ordered Uraniborg to be abandoned. Tycho left it in 1597, and it was destroyed in 1601, after Tycho died.
But it was more razed to the ground than utterly destroyed. In modern times, the only thing left of Uraniborg was the earthen wall built around the whole center, and foundations of its towers, buildings and walls, soon covered over with soil.
It was under one of its towers that Tycho’s alchemy labs were recently dug into. What made news was the analysis of shards and fragments dug out of the cellar. A tiny piece of tungsten was found. Tungsten, known today as a metal used in mostly-now-banned filament light bulbs, was known as wolfram from the 1540s when it was a residue from tin ore. But it wasn’t known discovered as tungsten until two centuries later. Its ore was rare to obtain and unknown in Tycho’s time, so it may have been generated in one of Tycho’s 16 alchemical furnaces. According to the reports, whether Tycho knew of this ‘heavy stone’, as it was named in Swedish, or merely an accidental result is not known.
Astronomical Travel
Tycho (and Kepler) Places in Prague, From Tycho’s Birthplace to His Death
The Tycho story above does make one ask if Uraniborg can be viewed today. As mentioned, the only original structural sites remaining are underground, other than a surrounding earthen wall. Further more, it is no longer Danish but now Swedish territory.
Today, the island of Ven is available by ferries from both countries. On the site is not only ongoing archaeology but also some structural reconstruction, on both Uraniborg and Stjerneborg—his observatory site at the latter, gardens at the former. It is home to the Tycho Brahe Museum.
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While Ven was his home for two decades, it is not the only place Tycho lived at and many of those actually survive today. Many were Danish then, but today belong to Sweden.
He was born in the city of Knutstorp, now part of the neighboring southernmost province in Sweden. His birth house, now owned by more modern royals; Tycho’s family had numerous royal connections, including being a cousin to the King, and members being part of his Privy Council, war leaders, and others, but is not related to the current owners. It is not open for tours about Tycho, but does have other commercial operations.
Unlike his other 11 later-born siblings he did not spend all his youth at Knutstorp but was farmed out to another royal. He lived in or attended school in other cities in Sweden and modern Denmark, and later in Germany.
He went to university in Copenhagen starting at 12(!), got matriculated at Germany’s Leipzig University, and by that time was far more interested in astronomy and science than the law profession he was sent to school for. Tycho then went to the University at Rostok in northern Germany where, in a duel, he lost his nose and had to begin wearing a prosthesis for the rest of his life. He later built his first quadrant for observations at the university in Augsberg, in southern Germany’s Bavaria. He even had brief stays as far south as Freiburg, and Basel, Switzerland.
His first real astronomical job took place in the 1570s teaching at what is now Herrevad Abby in Sweden, where he built his first quadrant for measuring star positions. It was there he got to the attention of King Frederick who proposed the observatory that became Uraniborg.
When King Christian made it impossible for Tycho to stay at Ven, he left with as much of his tools and manuscripts as he could, and his family. He spent a year near Hamburg and later, Wittenberg, Germany. In Wittenberg, Tycho met the far less gregarious Johannes Kepler, already a known mathematician and astronomer. While they never became friends, per se, Kepler was asked to join Tycho in Prague and analyze the years of planetary data to make the art of predicting planetary positions more accurate.
Tycho et all arrived in Prague (Praha, in Czech) in 1599.
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It is in Prague and surroundings that the most remains of Tycho’s career (and some of Kepler’s) can be visited. This author made a trip to Prague some years ago.
Tycho had an observatory built in Benatky had Jizerou (above, and apologies to European readers, the accents don’t come into Substack well), some 40-50 kilometers outside of Prague, but his new patron, Emperor Rudolph II, wanted his new scientist and astrologer to be closer, so he and Kepler moved, after a year, back to Prague.
Part of the time he was there he lived and worked out of the Queen’s so-called Summer Palace, which had been built just north of Hradcany, the main castle of Prague. Other times both he and the plebeian Kepler shared quarters on the street Novy Svet just outside the castle walls (below). But that was too close a quarters for the two quarrelsome colleagues.
Tycho died in October 1601. He was at a banquet with the King and others, but refused to break etiquette for a bio-break. That caused his bladder to rupture and it killed him a few days later, in a small castle a few streets away from the Novy Svet residence. He is buried in the (short name version) Church of Tyn. That’s located at the Stare Mesto, the Old Town Square. His grave and a standing huge headstone are at the main altar. [Tourist note: nearby are a centuries old Astrological Clock, and building where a young Einstein play his clarinet for fun and extra cash.]
In his final delirium Tycho repeatedly said he hoped he had not lived in vain. His data was bequeathed to Kepler to finish Tycho’s partially Earth-centered, partially Sun-centered hypothesis. Kepler remained in Prague, but moved in 1607 to an apartment near the Karlova Most (Karlov Bridge) at 4 Karlova Street. It was there he finished his work using Tycho’s planetary position data discovering the First and Second Laws of Planetary Motion (planets orbit the Sun in elliptical orbits, and they move faster when closer to the Sun than when farther). Tycho did not, after all, live in vain.
The city castles still remain, without any traces of Tycho. But the house at 75 Novy Svet, Kepler’s at 4 Karlova Street, and the castle at Benatky do have markers about them. Kepler’s apartment building had a small museum but that has been closed. A statue of Kepler and Tycho is near Novy Svet, but historically irrelevant.
Educational astronomy reports from recent various meetings will be coming out in Free and Paid issues soon. Want to read all these meeting reports and news, and educational tips? Upgrade to Paid!