The supernova was discovered by astronomer Steve Fossey, of University College London and four of his undergraduate students: Ben Cooke, Guy Pollack, Matthew Wilde and Thomas Wright.

He later said that "The weather was closing in, with increasing cloud, so instead of the planned practical astronomy class, I gave the students an introductory demonstration of how to use the CCD camera on one of the observatory’s automated 0.35–metre telescopes.

[8] Follow-up adaptive optics observations with the 10-metre (390 in) Keck telescope at Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawaii were used to precisely determine the location of the new supernova.

[4] SN 2014J was a popular target for amateur astronomers because it was located close to The Plough asterism (the 'Big Dipper') and visible all night for most Northern Hemisphere observers.

[12][13] Its unusual brightness and relative closeness led to SN 2014J becoming the subject of intense follow-up observations by astronomers worldwide,[7] including with the Hubble Space Telescope.

[19] The degree of light extinction from M82 dust blocking SN 2014J reduces its value as an observational prototype for Type Ia supernovae, but makes it a powerful probe of the interstellar medium of M82.

[22] This is not unexpected, because the progenitors of type Ia supernovae are thought to be white dwarfs in binary systems,[23] and observation of SN 2014J provided empirical confirmation for this.