On 1987 February 24, at 02:40, Shelton, while working in
Chile at
Las Campanas Observatory for the
University of Toronto, discovered a previously undetected bright light on a photograph of the
Large Magellanic Cloud. Initially skeptical, Shelton went outside to look with the naked eye, and saw that the bright light was indeed present. His discovery turned out to be a supernova, the first visible to the naked eye since
Johannes Kepler observed
SN 1604 nearly 383 years prior. Other astronomers around the world also soon noticed the bright new object. As Shelton was among the first to report, he is credited as the discoverer, along with Oscar Duhalde and
Albert Jones. ==Subsequent career and life==