My wife, my cow's, my Astronomy

[KIWI]

the amateurs just love it when they beat the pro's to the draw,.....

http://tvnz.co.nz/technology-news/amateur-kiwi-astronomer-discovers-supernova-2825223/video


A Kiwi farmer and part time astronomer is over the moon after it was confirmed he discovered a supernova.

The Oxford dairy farmer discovered the exploding star which is a rare event for an amateur astronomer.

Stu Parker had been scanning the skies searching for an elusive dying star for a long time.

"We searched long and hard, we searched thousands and thousands of galaxies over months and months and years sometimes to find one," says Parker.

And the thousands of hours of staring at the heavens paid off.

"Yeah it's great, it's marvellous it made a big difference and hopefully giving me a bit more credibility around the show which is really good," says Parker.

Parker will gain credibility as it's extremely rare for an amateur astronomer to be the first to find a supernova.

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[hp]

This is really cool that he has been rewarded for his dedication. That has got to be a real thrill to a star gazer.

[apeci]

Not too shabby. Supernova occur on average once per galaxy per hundred years, so if you can watch enough galaxies at the same time your odds get pretty good to spot one. Normally candidate identification is left up to computers scanning the sky and all humans do is eliminate or confirm for further study. Watching all those galaxies manually must really set you up for a thrill when you finally spot a star go boom.