We encourage teachers who have access to telescopes used in education to cooperate with us on creating and using of the present database of supernovae. Its main goal is to be helpful in preparing observation and to facilitate the exchange of experiences and results of simple research concerning those unusual objects. We all wish to make use of this opportunity to learn something new, as practically none of us is an expert in that area.

The idea of making observations of supernova stars in distant galaxies occurred to the author of that text, Krzysztof Rochowicz, an astronomer and a teacher in V LO in Toruń at the end of 2005. At that time, thanks to the efforts of prof. Lech Mankiewicz who coordinated realization of the program "Hands-On Universe, Europe" in Poland, with cooperation of British Council, the students of 5 Polish schools gained a possibility to use a 2-metre Faulkes telescope on Hawaii. As it has been proved by the first observations, that telescope is perfectly fit for taking photos of galaxies and a possibility to keep the track of changes occurring in them is particularly exciting from the cognitive and didactic point of view.

I think there is no need to persuade anyone about the importance of the role that explosions of supernova stars have played in the Universe and are still playing. Crowning the evolution of the most massive stars, they contribute to spreading of elements that are heavier than hydrogen and helium in the environment of galaxies that surrounds them. It is to them that we owe scattering of essential components that form the Earth, the environment in which we live, and ourselves. What remains after the explosion are either neutron stars - extremely fascinating objects, discovered just like pulsars less than half a century ago, or black wholes - unrivalled in arousing in students curiosity and interest in astrophysics. This year (2006) we are celebrating one thousand years from the first historically documented in Europe case of appearance of a supernova in our Galaxy. Discoveries of supernovae in other galaxies and detailed research on them started about one hundred years ago, and its importance for the contemporary astronomical research cannot be overestimated. After all they are unusual "standard candles" that allow us to determine distances to thousands of galaxies and, in consequence, to study the speed of the Universe expansion. It is to them that we owe the most unexpected in the cosmology of the second millennium and still mysterious discovery - accelerating of the Universe expansion. It is about them that we hear in the media on the occasion of making more and more detailed observations of another astronomical mystery - flashes of gamma radiation.

In spite of being in the vanguard of the astronomical research, supernovae that appear in other galaxies are nowadays within the scope of possibilities of the amateur observations. Technological revolution, that introduced digital camcorders as receivers of the telescopes, facilitates obtaining images of the thousands of galaxies scattered around the whole sky. Every year in several hundreds of them (in 2005 their number amounted to... 365, so it equaled the number of days in a year) there are discovered supernovae that appear suddenly and unexpectedly. At the moment of explosion their brightness equals the one of the whole galaxy, but after many weeks or months they disappear forever from the field of vision. With a small effort, or rather thanks to an educative and giving great satisfaction game, you have an opportunity to become eye witnesses of the cosmic catastrophe that is at the same time the germ of a new form of the matter existence in the ever changing Universe.

A task delimited in such a way fits wonderfully in the modern educational offer of high schools. And especially curriculum realized in the lessons of physics and astronomy can be enriched and diversified in that way. The majority of curriculums includes the section of "Structure and evolution of the Universe" that explains to students the methods used by modern physics and astronomers. Discussion of the evolution of the Universe, with a special emphasis on stars evolution with reference to supernovae is highly recommended.

It is worth mentioning that participation in the program of supernovae opens possibilities of international cooperation. At the site www.pl.euhou.net you can find Forum that is ready for exchanging your opinions about observations and all other topics. „Hands-On Universe, Europe” program makes it possible to use educational telescopes. All people interested in that form activity should contact the coordinators for the given country of that program.

We encourage all the teachers that have access to telescopes allowing to take photos of galaxies to try their hands in our common observation action. It depends on you how that projects will develop and how it will end. We will offer you advice and help, recommend previously selected objects, teach you easy and user-friendly methods of star brightness measurement and determination, as well as encourage the students to enrich our database of supernovae by themselves. The section of the tips and instructions will be expanded successively, as we want to answer all the questions and dispel all the doubts.

Let me give you, at the beginning, several tips from the point of view of the user of the Faulkes telescope, since I am the one and together with my students I am gaining on that telescope more and more experience. Excuse me, please, if the information is not ordered clearly and lucidly and if it is not complete - after all, we are all pioneers in that area.

1. Let's start from the mutual presentation of ourselves and getting to known each other - in our database we have prepared due registration forms and lists on which any student, teacher or school that is interested in the project can be put. That procedure will help us to gain perspective on the circle of potential participants in recommended and properly prepared observation campaigns. It will also allow you to gain easy and thorough access to information.

2. In order to try yourselves you will surely want to take your own photos of galaxies with supernovae. Especially for you we will prepare a list of supernovae recommended for observation. We are placing there those out of several dozens presently visible supernovae that in our subjective assessment will prove the most spectacular and that will be the least problematic at the more advanced analysis. Obviously we are unable to predict what kind of observation tools you are equipped with and if your observation will be successful. We, however, try to limit ourselves to the galaxies that are relatively bright (thus, the most frequent objects will come from the catalogue of NGC), where the supernova is clearly visible (eg. does not merge with its bright nucleus), and where in the immediate neighborhood (that is a few angle minutes) there is visible a comparison star - the one which brightness can be a model for brightness determination of the supernova.

3. We pay attention to the proper choice of the observation date for the users of the Faulkes telescope. Due to the specific construction of the pavilion (that opens widely to the whole sky and that is exposed to the light coming from there) the telescope is suitable for observation of the nebulous objects, such as galaxies in the period close to the new moon, between the last and the first quarter.

4. We encourage you to make three-colour expositions - not only will it be possible to determine brightness in three colours at the same time, but also you will have a vestige after observation in a form of a spectacular picture. Obviously those who want to use the time optimally can limit themselves to one colour.

5. We recommend the use of the software SALSA-J for image analysis and supernova brightness determination - it can be downloaded for free from the site of EU-HOU.

6. For more details concerning the scale of brightness used in astronomy read the work of Tomasz Kacik.

7. Any questions, wishes and comments can be sent to supernovae@euhou.net