Back studying Kepler for H of S

I definitely have an upwards trend in momentum for work at the moment - post-exams and post-Spain. So for the last couple of days I have been working through Voelkel's The Composition of Kepler's Astronomia Nova. This is a technically difficult work and has led me to thinking about appropriate levels of technicality for various users. e.g. when thinking about study back in 1982 and comparing reading Koestler's The Sleepwalkers and Koyre's Astronomical Revolution. I can still remember the excitement of reading the latter straight after the former - both have their place but Koyre is clearly the better work in history of science.

I am also thinking a lot about biographical writing in the history of science. I may do a project (time permitting of course) to compare the structure and manner of the recent biography of Dirac, The Strangest Man, with Westfall on Newton, Never at Rest. The former is a good representation of current biography aimed at the "intelligent amateur", while the latter is a scholarly work of the highest caliber

Again I am working on developing a bibliography - there are so many works to appraise and consider for a biography. For example, how much should one discuss Jardine's The Birth of History and Philosophy of Science (his book on Kepler's defence of Tycho against Ursus) in a major work on K. How important is it? Jardine's book is 300 pages but it might just be 5/6 pages of a bigger work?

Also there are questions relating to diagrams / explanations of technical terms / footnotes /uses of appendices, etc. The old adage is that every diagram cuts your readership in half - but how can you avoid having some in a work on an astronomer?

As always, lots to think about