Purpose: To derive a relationship between supernovae distances and how much they are redshifted. Materials: Directions, Ia supernova spectra (light curves), and provided data table Graph paper and straight edge or graphing program Calculators(optional) Background: In this lab, you will use the spectra of the Ia supernovae to calculate their distance then draw a conclusion about redshift over distance. The maximum brightness is the top of the curve. You will notice the lower magnitude is actually brighter and thus higher on the graph. Astronomers have determined the maximum brightness (M) for this type of supernova is -19.12, but you can round to -19.1 for this lab. Since astronomers have no real way of "checking" their answers to see if they are right (for example by using a meter stick to measure the 'actual' distance to a supernova), they must rely on many different distance indicators and their estimation of error in those measurements to see how close they think their estimates are. As is the case with real data, some of the points will not fall on a straight line; this is because we are using a simple technique to estimate the distance to the supernovae. When