TheSkySearchers

it may very well be that there is more than an event, so I'll leave the floor to you.
I'll tell you about my experiences later.

I look forward to hearing from you .

PS, I hope I have this thread in the right place.

For me the top three were

Total solar eclipse of 2017
Mercury transit of 2019
Neowise comet of 2020

Tops for me

Total solar eclipse 2017
Total lunar eclipse September 2015 from the beach (both eclipses shared with the same people)
Leonid meteor shower 2001 (finally a big one after 30+ years of disappointment)
Comet views in the mid seventies (didn't know which one)
My first view of Saturn and Jupiter through a scope in the 1960s
Every time Orion returns late Summer and rules the night sky in Winter
Looking up at the night sky any time

Bob

I have enjoyed many events but the most memorable was my first sighting of the GRS through my first telescope.

I live down in San Diego and was out in the local desert in the 90's and saw the northern lights! I was looking across the desert valley and at first thought there must be a fire on the ridge as it was glowing red. As I looked up I noticed a curtain of white dancing and connected to the red glow below.. Amazing. Evidently, the fact that I was so far South meant that the Northern Lights show up red/white rather than the blue/green that you usually see.

It's a super rare event this far south and I only think it happens every 20-30 years or so....

If I were to add a #2 on my list it would be comet Hale-Bopp. Imagine recent comet NEOWISE on steroids.

Ditto on eclipse of 2017.

Also the transit of Venus in 2012.

Hale-Bopp, Neowise a close second.

Clear skies,
Steve

The Transit of Venus
I took the day off work, it was a beautiful day.

Of course the clouds were on the horizon, but I got to see most of it through my 127 Mak.
I'll never forget that day.

Also the recent solar eclipse several years ago.
I drove about an hour south to a little park in SC for Totality

While scanning the night sky with my Orion Starblast 90mm refractor. I happened upon the Coathanger Cluster, which hooked me into the hobby.

The milky way at the farm as a kid
First view of Saturn - on a spindly legged Sears refractor
Comet C/1969 Y1 (Bennett)

I was driving an 18 wheeler across Nevada late one night. I pulled over to walk around my truck a couple times and kick the tires. I remember it was very dark, the skies were very clear and I saw a comet with a huge tail. It was Hale-Bopp.

I was on a high school field trip to Isle Royale National Park, which is about a bazillion miles out into Lake Superior. One clear night we all went out onto the local campground pier to do some stargazing. Being surrounded by water with very few lights on the island, the sky was so dark that Delphinus was a slap-you-upside-the-head constellation.

After an hour or so, an aurora display started up. It wasn't much at first, but it soon covered the sky from horizon to horizon. And it didn't stop. We finally gave up watching in the wee hours of the morning and went to bed. I've never seen anything like it since then.

There are three events that stand out.

In the 1950s I was a little younger and and we were living in a clearing in the midst of a forest. No LP. I remember looking up at the summer Milky Way and IDing constellations and planets.

In 1972 I was an astronomy major. A grad student was getting married and I had the happy obligation of taking spectra with a 1 meter RC. Only a few spectra were required so I had time to look at Saturn, M57 and M13. The color saturation in M57 and M13 was quite intense and breathtaking. Multiple divisions in Saturn's rings. There was more. A total eclipse of the Moon was on and there was a very nice auroral display.

I viewed the 2017 total solar eclipse a few hours from here.

Several

-My first glance at the rings of Saturn through my spectacle-glass-telescope
-Aurora Borealis in the Netherlands
-Noctilucent clouds
-Reappearance of Jupiter after occulting by the Moon.
Almost every first time of several astronomical phenomena.

Seeing the Perseids in the 70s and not knowing what a meteor shower was!
Seeing Saturn for the first time through a telescope, I opened a Twitter account just so I could tell the world!
Discovering globular clusters in my 10" dob.
Every time Orion returns late Summer and rules the night sky in Winter, thanks Bob!

Regards

Graeme

Absolutely #1 is Hale-Bopp. The first time that I saw it was coming out of my front door toward the East and it was visually striking before dawn. I saw it many, many times while running around my neighborhood in the evening.

#2 would be seeing the space shuttle re-enter the atmosphere (not sure if that qualifies as an astronomical event). Saw it twice. Almost wrecked going to work one morning when it streaked across the trees. Saw it another time when it spanned the whole sky from the NW to the SE and went inside afterward to see it landing in Fla.

Many, many others that were amazing. As mentioned, Saturn, wow. Jupiter and the GRS.

Thanks for the thread!

1) Being little kid outside with my dad watching the first satellite back in the days of Sputnik.
2) A few years later looking out the bedroom window and seeing my first total lunar eclipse.
3) As a teen watching the first lunar landing on television.

notFritzArgelander wrote: ↑Tue Nov 10, 2020 6:06 pm There are three events that stand out.

In the 1950s I was a little younger and and we were living in a clearing in the midst of a forest. No LP. I remember looking up at the summer Milky Way and IDing constellations and planets.

In 1972 I was an astronomy major. A grad student was getting married and I had the happy obligation of taking spectra with a 1 meter RC. Only a few spectra were required so I had time to look at Saturn, M57 and M13. The color saturation in M57 and M13 was quite intense and breathtaking. Multiple divisions in Saturn's rings. There was more. A total eclipse of the Moon was on and there was a very nice auroral display.

I viewed the 2017 total solar eclipse a few hours from here.

I'd like to add viewing comets Ikeya-Seki(1965), Hyakutake(1996), and Hale-Bopp(1997). While the latter two were quite obvious Ikeya-Seki was a more classic beauty.

here is my event.

I enjoyed seeing Hyakutake comet.
hall-bopp comet.
but the gift of a lifetime Shoemaker-Levy 9.

WOW,

When for the first time I heard about this comet, I was captivated by the fact that it could perhaps enter into a collision with Jupiter.
there it is in 1993 and they predict that it will be on the way to collision in July 1994 with the giant jupiter. I immediately bought a telescope to see this phenomenon. So from July 16, 1994 to July 22, 1994, I was in the front row to see this show with my telescope.

the spectacle of a lifetime, nothing has yet captivated me so much. voila .

For me it was:

1. Seeing Saturn's rings for the very first time (60mm frac @ ≈ 100X) -- 1966
2. The Orion nebula (M42) (through my newly constructed 8" Newt, and newly purchased Galoc 16.3 EP) -- 1972
3. The Orion nebula again after a 40-year Non-Astro observing void (through my newly purchased CPC1100 and a Celestron X-Cel LX 25mm) -- 2013
4. Comet Hyakutake --1996
5. Comet Hale-Bopp --1997

Great thread,
JT

Hello all. Although this doesn't involve a telescope, my greatest thrill was seeing Mercury on April 2, 2010. I was leaving a grocery store and saw this tiny planet from the parking lot. I quickly went home, and relocated it from my backyard. I couldn't get a scope on it, as I was blocked at my best location with my garden shed and neighbor's houses and trees, but I did use my binoculars. This exciting event lasted for a few more days. I learned to hold my arm out and just to the right of also present Venus, turn my fist down 45 degrees from horizontal to find it. Compared to Venus, it was just a pinpoint. It starts out with a flicker, and then becomes a beautiful golden ball of light. When you consider that it has an orbit of only 88 days, is just 0.4 astronomical units from the sun, and is always very low to our dusk or dawn horizons, many amateur astronomers have never seen Mercury! This is a great amber jewel to those who can view it. Below is an old Sky & Telescope chart of the occasion.