devoting himself to financially unproductive work. In 1568 Tycho left Rostock, and matriculated at Basle, but soon moved on to Augsburg, where he found more enthusiasm for astronomy, and induced one of his new friends to order the construction of a large 19-foot quadrant of heavy oak beams. This was the first of the series of great instruments associated with Tycho's name, and it remained in use for five years, being destroyed by a great storm in 1574. Tycho meanwhile had left Augsburg in 1570 and returned to live with his father, now governor of Helsingborg Castle, until the latter's death in the following year. Tycho then joined his mother's brother, Steen Bille, the only one of his relatives who showed any sympathy with his desire for a scientific career.
On 11th November, 1572, Tycho noticed an unfamiliar bright star in the constellation of Cassiopeia, and continued to observe it with a sextant. It was a very brilliant object, equal to Venus at its brightest for the rest of November, not falling below the first magnitude for another four months, and remaining visible for more than a year afterwards. Tycho wrote a little book on the new star, maintaining that it had practically no parallax, and therefore could not be, as some supposed, a comet. Deeming authorship beneath the dignity of a noble he was very reluctant to publish, but he was convinced of the importance of increasing the number and accuracy of observations, though he was by no means free from all the erroneous ideas of his time. The little book contained a certain amount of astrology, but Tycho evidently did not regard this as of very great importance. He adopted the view that the very rarity of the phenomenon of a new star must prevent the formulation and adoption of definite rules for determining its significance. We gather from lectures which he was persuaded to deliver at the University of Copenhagen that, though in agreement
