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From 1981 to 1997, one man would dominate the world of amateur supernova
discovery: the Rev.Robert Evans of New South Wales. By April 1997, Evans had discovered
an incredible 38 supernovae visually using mainly a 25-cm Newtonian (a
larger, more cumbersome, 40-cm Newtonian was also employed at times for the
later discoveries). A few other amateur astronomers did succeed in those 16 years
(Okazaki, Horiguchi, Kushida, Johnson, and Aoki, for example), but it was only
when U.S. amateur Michael Schwartz used an early robotic Paramount mounting
mated to a Celestron 14, in 1997, that Evans’ rate of discovery was under threat- Springer Book Excert - Tribute to Bob.
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