Taking a Picture of a Supernova While Setting Up a New Camera

Re:Taking a Picture of a Supernova While Setting Up a New Ca... by tzs on Thursday February 22, 2018 @12:23AM (#16435319)

I'm confused by this. There have been several supernovas throughout history that were bright enough to be seen without instruments, including some ones in 1006 and 1054 that were quite a bit brighter than Venus, and ones in 1572 and 1604 that were brighter than Jupiter.

How do we know no human happened to be watching during the first hour of one of these?

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Re:Taking a Picture of a Supernova While Setting Up a New Ca... by ramses0 on Thursday February 22, 2018 @12:37AM (#16435362)

"Observed" ... many people have seen the moon, but few people have "observed" it. ie: gathered evidence, etc.

I may see a fly across the room, but I'm not really "observing" it in any meaningful way unless I'm prepared, with proper sensors, cameras, etc. recording what's going on so that other people can learn from it.

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Re:Taking a Picture of a Supernova While Setting Up a New Ca... by iamleppert on Thursday February 22, 2018 @12:39AM (#16435368)

Your question is fallacious. The point is he is the first known person to have witnessed it in known history, the odds of such were calculated to be 1 in 10 million.

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