of the remainder of his three years' course at Copenhagen. His uncle
next sent him to Leipzig to study law, but he managed to continue his
astronomical researches. He obtained the Alphonsine and the new Prutenic
Tables, but soon found that the latter, though more accurate than the
former, failed to represent the true positions of the planets, and
grasped the fact that continuous observation was essential in order to
determine the true motions. He began by observing a conjunction of
Jupiter and Saturn in August, 1563, and found the Prutenic Tables
several days in error, and the Alphonsine a whole month. He provided
himself with a cross-staff for determining the angular distance between
stars or other objects, and, finding the divisions of the scale
inaccurate, constructed a table of corrections, an improvement that
seems to have been a decided innovation, the previous practice having
been to use the best available instrument and ignore its errors. About
this time war broke out between Denmark and Sweden, and Tycho returned
to his uncle, who was vice-admiral and attached to the king's suite. The
uncle died in the following month, and early in the next year Tycho went
abroad again, this time to Wittenberg. After five months, however, an
outbreak of plague drove him away, and he matriculated at Rostock, where
he found little astronomy but a good deal of astrology. While there he
fought a duel in the dark and lost part of his nose, which he replaced
by a composition of gold and silver. He carried on regular observations
with his cross-staff and persevered with his astronomical studies in
spite of the objections and want of sympathy of his fellow-countrymen.
The King of Denmark, however, having a higher opinion of the value of
science, promised Tycho the first canonry that should fall vacant in the
cathedral chapter of Roskilde, so that he might be assured of an income
while 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