“There just weren’t enough professional astronomers who could observe enough of the heavens to have much, if any, chance of spotting such an event. But there were thousands of amateur astronomers all too happy to do that job themselves. Armed with relatively inexpensive computer-guided telescopes with Dobsonian optics, which allow quite large apertures (twelve inches is not unusual) in telescopes less than five feet long, and sensitive CCD (charge-coupled device) sensors that can collect more light than the human eye, contemporary amateur astronomers can photograph the skies better than astronomers with house-sized telescopes could a century ago. The first person to see Supernova 1987A was an observer somewhere between the amateurs and the pros. Ian Shelton, a Canadian grad-school dropout, was”