Case file · Cosmic event
Taqi al-Din and the Great Comet of 1577
Astronomer Taqi al-Din observed the Great Comet of 1577 from his new observatory in Istanbul and read it as a favourable sign for an Ottoman campaign against Persia.
1577 CE · 41.03, 28.98 · status: official
The account
When plague and defeats followed, religious opponents blamed the observatory for prying into God's secrets, and in 1580 Sultan Murad III had it demolished. Tycho Brahe watched the same comet from Denmark and proved it lay beyond the Moon.