09-18-2016, 08:02 PM
"Once a supernova is located and its type determined, accurate measurements of changes in its brightness over a period of several weeks to a couple of months are essential in order to determine its true intrinsic brightness. Because of the distorting effects of “seeing” introduced by the earth’s atmosphere, supernova and galaxy light are blurred together, rendering accurate brightness measurements impossible. Only with the undistorted and stable images provided by a telescope in space is it possible to carefully separate supernova and galaxy light and derive accurate supernova brightness.