Tycho Brahe a Mikołaj Kopernik

The author analyses Copernicus’s ideas described in De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543) and the different view of the universe put forward by the excellent Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546–1601). Elias Olsen Morsing (1550–1590), a collaborator of Tycho Brahe, was sent to Frombork (Frauenburg) in 1584 to take the same measurements as Copernicus, but with his own, much better, instruments. The idea was to compare the new measurements with those taken by Copernicus. The expedition was a success. Morsing was able to detect certain errors in Copernicus’s measurements, and the scope of these errors. While in Frombork, Morsing received a primitive astronomical instrument and a portrait of Copernicus as gifts from canon Jan Hannovius. The author of this paper notes the Catholic Church’s scepticism about Copernicus’s theory of the universe, while acknowledging that both Copernicus and Brahe had deep faith in God and shared the belief that they owed their learning and achievement to God.