arctan in t us say, someone ligy-first-birthday cake.

    So er got in touco ask if ts for ing supernovae, tronomical community t  of his mind.

    At time Evans en-incelescope—a very respectable size for amateur stargazingbut  of to do serious cosmology—and ofind one of tronomical ory before Evansstarted looking in 1980, fey supernovae  time I visited of 2001,  recorded y-fourty-fifter and a ty-sixtain advantages. Most observers, like most people generally, are int of sky largely to  first. elescopes are cumbersome tional time is consumed o position. Evans could sle sixteen-incelescope around like a tail gunner in a dogfigicular point in telescope o do fifty or sixty.

    Looking for supernovae is mostly a matter of not finding to 1996  a s of peering andpeering. Once een days, but anotime  tfinding any at all.

    “tually a certain value in not finding anyt s to te at heabsence of evidenceis evidence.”

    On a table beside telescope acks of pos and papers relevant to s,and ronomicalpublications, and at some time you must  tos of distant nebulae and t clouds of celestial lig delicate and moving splendor. Evans’s . t blurry black-and-tle points of ness. One ed a sars rifling flare t I o put close to my face to see.

    told me, ar in a constellation called Fornax from a galaxy knooastronomy as NGC1365. (NGC stands for Nealogue, o say, it’sa database.) For sixty million silent years, t from tar’s spectacular demise traveledunceasingly til one nig of 2001 it