Astronomer Spots Supernova From Back Garden

Amateur stargazer Steve Foulkes peered at the heavens through his back garden telescope - and witnessed the death of a whole solar system.

He was celebrating today after becoming only the fifth Briton ever to witness a supernova using a home telescope.

Despite poor weather and billions-to-one odds,Steve,39,realised the dream of a lifetime when he spotted the dying star.

Steve,who works at a defence base said he nearly missed the spectacular event.

"I noticed a faint difference in the north east part of the NGC 2415 galaxy,but it was so small I carried on looking at other galaxies" he said.

"A couple of days later I re-examined the image,and there it was,a supernova.I was absolutely delighted."

He said he's got a 10in reflecting telescope and charge-coupled device astronomical imaging camera,linked to two PCs and software.

It stands more than 9ft tall and dominates his back garden.

The spectacular find by the father-of-two was part of a two-year search and observation of more than 10,000 galaxies with the UK Supernova Patrol.

A supernova is a star at the end of its life which has used all its nuclear fuel and collapses in on itself,blowing itself to pieces.

In recent years,supernovas have been used to help measure the distance to faraway galaxies and the expansion rate of the universe.

Steve's particular supernova's brightness is nearly twice the expected level in this type of galaxy and may be a hypernova,which is extremely rare.

He designed his own software and programme to make his discovery but he has been interested in stars since the age of seven and built his own telescope at age 14.

To prove his discovery was not a one-off he aims to repeat his historic feat before he moves on to study active nuclear galaxies.

"I'd like to get one more just to prove it wasn't a fluke then move on to something else" he said.

"It has been a life-long ambition to discover something like this so it is very satisfying to have finally done it."