Recent Supernovae
The last supernova to be seen in our galaxy was observed by Kepler in 1604.
The brightest since then was supernova 1987A in the Large
Magellanic Cloud, a
small satellite galaxy to the Milky Way visible in the Southern Hemisphere.
The brightest supernova in the northern sky
during the last twenty years was
supernova 1993J, in the galaxy M81, first observed in March of 1993.
The supernova rate in a galaxy like ours is about one every 50 years.
It
is likely that other supernovae have occurred in our galaxy since Kepler's Supernova,
but we failed to see them because from our vantage point
much of the galaxy is obscured by
dust.