Tycho Brahe days days in the year pregnant with misfortune, wherefore in Denmark, up to this very day, the laboring class call such days on which they happen to meet with some unfortunate accident, Tycho Brahe's days." In his travelogue "A Poet's Bazaar", Hans Christian Andersen alludes to the fact that Tycho Brahe died in exile in Prague, observing that "Denmark owns not even his dust; but the Danes mention his name in their bad times, as if a denunciation proceeded out of it: 'These are Tycho Brahe's days!' say they." However, no mention of the Tycho Brahe days is actually found in
Tycho Brahe Týn, in Old Town Square near the Prague Astronomical Clock. Tycho's view of science was driven by his passion for accurate observations, and the quest for improved instruments of measurement drove his life's work. Tycho was the last major astronomer to work without the aid of a telescope, soon to be turned skyward by Galileo and others. Given the limitations of the naked eye for making accurate observations, he devoted many of his efforts to improving the accuracy of the existing types of instrument — the sextant and the quadrant. He designed larger versions of these instruments, which allowed him