It is him – the astrologer and scientist, that his compatriot Hans Christian Andersen skillfully described in The Swan’s Nest fairy tale: “… a Swan had flapped his great wings and scattered the twilight mist. Then the starry heavens became more visible and seemed nearer to the earth. That Swan's name was Tycho Brahe.”

This is what remained beyond fiction: the Danish astronomer not only observed the supernova in the Cassiopeia constellation, but also headed the Uranienborg observatory near Copenhagen that he had constructed and equipped himself. It is believed that Tycho Brahe’s main contribution to science lies in systematic and precise astronomical observations that he carried out for many years and that allowed his assistant Johannes Kepler to formulate the laws of planetary motion.