[PeterM]

Stuart Paker (Stu) is currently one of the most prolific amateur supernova discoverers in the world with 5 discoveries in only 4 months. An achievement he, and I know we are proud of.
While as many as 500ish SN are detected each year the bulk are by professional searches but amateur discoveries are still very valuable to the science. i.e. The young teenager Caroline Moore (USA) who last year discovered what may yet be another class of SN in 2008ha (a failed SN?) 1000 times dimmer than a typical supernova. Stu's 2009jz last week which has been classed as a subluminous type 1a event. So while the understanding of SN triggers seems well established, astronomers still have unaswered questions. The current discovery numbers while some years up/ down depending on professional searches, are likely to dramatically increase 10/100/1000 fold in coming years as more and more sky surveys come on line. From an amateur astronomers viewpoint the important thing right now is that Stu is successful because he is doing what Bob Evans always spoke about with his searching - play the numbers game. Sure get all your reference images, equipment etc up to the challenge, but image lots of galaxies often, never give up and you will be successful.
Stu does exactly this and he does it very well, congratulations yet again Stu!
PeterM.