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What has been your most thrilling view?

neil groves

By neil groves
in Observing - Discussion

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neil groves

neil groves

Posted
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Ok this thread is for you all to share your most favorite time at the eye of the telescope.......i'll start.

Although not telescopic, one of my most fav things to see in the sky is meteors, they can be so bright but more than that, I love the way they speed across the inky black sky absolutely silent.....AWSOME!!!

Telescopically it has to be M31, I have never seen it through anything other than a small refractor but when that little glowing smudge swings into the FOV, I just sit and stare.....AWSOME!!

Neil.

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Scott

Scott

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I love that these threads come up from time to time....mainly because my preference changes from time to time.

Today I've got my head in the south and I'm gonna have to say, large and small magelanic clouds naked eye, although 47Tuc was pretty cool too.

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Delboy_Hog

Delboy_Hog

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Hmmm, struggle to choose one I'm afraid...

First view of Saturn - found it entirely by chance in the sky on my first outing with a telescope 5 years ago, loved every second of this incredible hobby since!

A warm (shorts and t-shirt) March evening some years back, viewing Mars in (what I now know to be) perfect seeing conditions.  Detail on the planet surface, ice at the pole...magic! (but oh, if only I'd had a camera back then!)

Seeing a huge fireball whizz across the sky for the first time

Boggling at comet Hale-Bopp all those years ago

There's been plenty of wow moments, but looking back, those are the ones that spring to mind!

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John

John

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Some of my most thrilling moments have been the least spectacular to actually view and those are supernovae. I've managed to see half a dozen now and even though they only appear as a tiny speck of light amidst the hazy arms of a far away galaxy they are challenging to track down, have a relatively short lived surge of "brightness" (a mag 12 one is quite a bright one !) and the thought of the cataclysmic event that is being witnessed, albeit one that happened millions of years ago, to me make them fascinating and somewhat awesome to observe in my opinion  :smiley:

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Naemeth

Naemeth

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First time I saw M45 through binoculars was my first 'wow' moment, first time I saw Saturn was very special with my Heritage. Lastly, first time I saw the Ring Nebula (M57) with my 10" dob, amazed that I could faintly see colour.

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RikM

RikM

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So far the biggest 'wow' for me was tracking ISS through the finderscope of my Dob while my Son looked through the scope eyepiece. We were leaping round the garden like loons. Nothing to do with seeing a little glowing 'H' shape but everything to do with sharing a magic moment with someone special.

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dick_dangerous

dick_dangerous

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Boggling at comet Hale-Bopp all those years ago

That takes me back - I remember going out to observe it every night in the TAL. A magnificent comet. Here's hoping that ISON doesn't fall to bits come November 28th...

These threads are always fun, especially at gone midnight when its cloudy and you're about to go to bed! I should keep track of the answers I give because it changes each time! Right now comet fever is building, so I'd second Hale-Bopp but Hyakutake in 1996 was also special. We made a special trip up to the Forest to see that one, and it was the first time I'd ever seen a bright comet after Halley's failed to live up to the hype in 1986.

Viewing the Aurora Borealis from Iceland was equally wow - all those shifting lights in the sky. I could see why the Inuit believed they were the souls of the dead trying to find their way home.

Staring up at the centre of our galaxy from deep in a canyon in Peru with no artificial lights for miles around was pretty awe-inspiring. I have never felt quite so small and it was the darkest sky I have ever seen. Ditto seeing the Magellanic Clouds for the first time in Australia.

Through a telescope, my first view of M42 was quite a special moment - I knew it was going to be good, just never realised how good. Since I got back in to all this, Saturn's rings knocked my socks off (Even though my telescope isn't great for planets), the Pleiades look amazing in a short-tube refractor and M31 never fails to impress. Probably my two biggest wow moments were outside a yurt on Exmoor when I located the notoriously difficult to find M33 in a matter of minutes and was wowed by how bright it appeared (Fully justifying Exmoor's dark sky status), and from Bushy Park, with its London light pollution, when I first saw the Lagoon Nebula, M8.

I should probably go to bed now!

DD

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AstroJon

AstroJon

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The comment about the Aurora reminds me of my best naked eye view. I was at a conference in Canada back in 1998. First (and only) time I had ever seen it. The display covered approximately 80% of the sky and was so bright you could read by it, really amazing sight with all the intricate patterns and pulsations.

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