Ian Keith Shelton (born 30 March 1957) is a Canadian astronomer who discovered SN 1987A, the first modern supernova close and bright enough to be visible to the naked eye.
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.
As Shelton was among the first to report, he is credited as the discoverer, along with Oscar Duhalde and Albert Jones.