The Sleepwalkers (135 page)

Like
Kepler,
Tycho
stood
with
one
foot
in
the
past
and
was
devoted
both
to
alchemy
and
astrology.
Like
Kepler,
he
became
a
court
astrologer
and
had
to
waste
much
of
his
time
with
the
casting
of
horoscopes
for
patrons
and
friends;
like
Kepler,
he
did
it
with
his
tongue
in
his
cheek,
despised
all
other
astrologers
as
quacks,
and
yet
was
profoundly
convinced
that
the
stars
influenced
man's
character
and
destiny
though
nobody
quite
knew
how.
Unlike
Kepler's,
however,
his
belief
in
astrology
derived
not
from
mysticism
–
which
was
completely
alien
to
his
domineering
nature
–
but
from
stark
superstition.

The
great
event
of
these
years,
an
event
that
was
discussed
all
over
the
world
and
which
established,
at
a
single
stroke,
Tycho's
fame
as
the
leading
astronomer
of
his
time,
was
the
new
star
of
1572.
In
Tycho's
life,
all
the
decisive
landmarks
were
sky-marks:
the
eclipse
of
the
sun
when
he
was
fourteen
which
brought
him
to
astronomy,
the
conjunction
of
Jupiter
and
Saturn
when
he
was
seventeen,
which
made
him
realize
its
insufficiencies;
the
new
star
when
he
was
twenty-six,
and
the
comet
of
1577,
five
years
later.
Of
all
these,
the
new
star
was
the
most
important.

On
the
evening
of
11
November,
1572,
Tycho
was
walking
from
Steen's
alchemist
laboratory
back
to
supper
when,
glancing
at
the
sky,
he
saw
a
star
brighter
than
Venus
at
her
brightest,
in
a
place
where
no
star
had
been
before.
The
place
was
a
little
to
the
north-west
of
the
familiar
"W"
–
the
constellation
of
Cassiopeia,
which
then
stood
near
the
Zenith.
The
sight
was
so
incredible
that
he
literally
did
not
believe
his
eyes;
he
called
at
first
some
servants,
and
then
several
peasants
to
confirm
the
fact
that
there
really
was
a
star
where
no
star
had
any
business
to
be.
It
was
there
all
right,
and
so
bright
that
later
on
people
with
sharp
eyes
could
see
it
even
in
the
middle
of
the
day.
And
it
remained
in
the
same
spot
for
eighteen
months.

Other
astronomers
besides
Tycho
had
seen
the
new
star
in
the
first
days
of
November.
It
was
then
in
full
blaze;
in
December
it
began
very
slowly
to
fade,
but
ceased
to
be
visible
only
by
the
end
of
March,
the
year
after
next.
The
world
had
never
seen
or
heard
the
like
since
the
year
125
B.C.
when
Hipparchus,
according
to
the
second
book
of
Pliny's
Natural
History
,
had
seen
a
new
star
appear
in
the
sky.

The
sensational
importance
of
the
event
lay
in
the
fact
that
it
contradicted
the
basic
doctrine
–
Aristotelian,
Platonic
and
Christian
–
that
all
change,
all
generation
and
decay
were
confined
to
the
immediate
vicinity
of
the
earth,
the
sub-lunary
sphere;
whereas
the
distant
eighth
sphere
in
which
the
fixed
stars
were
located,
was
immutable
from
the
day
of
Creation
to
eternity.
The
only
known
exception
in
history
was
the
appearance
of
the
above-mentioned
new
star
of
Hipparchus;
but
that
had
been
very
long
ago,
and
one
could
explain
it
away
by
assuming
that
Hipparchus
had
merely
seen
a
comet
(which
was
then
considered
an
atmospheric
phenomenon
in
the
sub-lunary
region).

Now,
what
distinguishes
a
fixed
star
from
a
planet,
or
a
comet,
or
a
meteor,
is
the
fact
that
it
is
"fixed":
apart
from
its
participation
in
the
daily
rotation
of
the
firmament
as
a
whole,
it
does
not
move.
No
sooner
did
that
bright
new
cuckoo
egg
appear
on
the
tip
of
the
celestial
"W",
far
out-shining
the
legitimate
stars
in
its
nest,
stargazers
all
over
Europe
feverishly
tried
to
determine
whether
it
moved
or
not.
If
it
did,
it
was
not
a
real
star
and
academic
science
was
saved;
if
it
did
not,
the
world
had
to
be
thought
afresh.

Maestlin
in
Tuebingen
who,
though
one
of
the
leading
astronomers
of
the
time,
seems
to
have
possessed
no
instruments
whatsoever,
held
a
thread
at
arm's
length
from
his
eyes
in
such
a
way
that
it
passed
through
the
new
star
and
two
other
fixed
stars.
When,
after
a
few
hours,
the
three
were
still
in
the
same
straight
line,
he
concluded
that
the
new
star
did
not
move.
⁴
Thomas
Digges
in
England
used
a
similar
method,
and
came
to
the
same
result;
others
found
a
displacement,
but
only
a
small
one,
due,
of
course,
to
the
errors
of
their
coarse
instruments.
This
was
Tycho's
great
opportunity,
and
he
fully
rose
to
it.
He
had
just
finished
a
new
instrument
–
a
sextant
with
arms
five
and
a
half
feet
long,
joined
by
a
bronze
hinge,
with
a
metallic
arc
scale
graduated
to
single
minutes
and,
as
a
novelty,
a
table
of
figures
designed
to
correct
the
errors
of
the
instrument.
It
was
like
a
heavy
gun
compared
to
the
slings
and
catapults
of
his
colleagues.
The
result
of
Tycho's
observations
was
unequivocal:
the
new
star
stood
still
in
the
sky.