You can send an astronomer's telegram: http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/ http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/ There's a pretty active community of amateur ast

You can send an astronomer's telegram: http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/ http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/ There's a pretty active community of amateur astronomers who search for new supernovae. Until recently amateurs actually discovered most new supernovae. Japanese amateurs especially found a lot because there's nothing over the Pacific, so they could discover all the supernova that went off when it was night over the Pacific.