Every night professional and amateur astronomers alike scour the sky for exploding stars. Increasingly these supernova hunters rely on robotic telescopes and image analysing software to watch the skies while they sleep, but on the 21st January 2014 a new supernova slipped past the automated systems and would have gone completely unnoticed if it wasn’t for astronomer Dr Steve Fossey and his students at University College London, who were watching the sky with their own eyes.   

By meeting Dr Fossey and his high-tech automated telescope, along with some amateur astronomers with their more modest kit, Ellen Meek explores whether there is still a role for the human in observing the universe and, as this supernova fades from view, what else can we gain from observing the skies?

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech 
