What's your most impressive viewing

[Gary170782]

So a few weeks ago I had my scope set up (rare occasion lately) and I had the Orion Nebula in my view, when in the space of about 1 minute I had a plane fly through my view and then a meteor flew past and it was for me anyway a real "WOW" moment and I'll never forget it.

 

Just wondering what's other people's "WOW" moments were, if any! 

 

 

Gary

[John]

Quite a few over the years that I've been in the hobby. If I had to select a few of the recent ones I guess they might be (in no particular order of preferance)

- Managing to see my most distant object, Quasar CTA 102 when it suddenly brightened recently. It's around 8 billion light years away.

- The 2016 "Blood Moon" lunar eclipse was truly spectacular.

- There was a multiple moon shadow transit on Jupiter last year that was rather wonderful to observe.

- Managing to see a couple of the moons of Uranus and Neptunes moon Triton which is the most distant rocky object that I've managed to see.

Plenty more from further back but I've been in the hobby for 30+ years so I won't go over them all !

 

-

[cuivenion]

Wife bought me my first telescope for my birthday. First "star" I pointed it at randomly turned out to be Saturn and it looked fantastic. Also looking at M35 and M57 for the first time.

[Galen Gilmore]

My first time (that I can remember) going to truly dark skies. I felt so small and insignifican, but it was amazing.

Another is when I observed M81 and M82 for the first timeafter 20+ minutes of searching, I jumped for joy and texted everybody in my contacts about it.

[cletrac1922]

A while ago, was doing a display for a primary school located in the cane fields between Brisbane and the Goldcoast. We were observing Jupiter, when saw a small blip appear on the surface of Jupiter. Yelled out to one of the other club members, come and check this out. We actually observed the moon rising on Jupiter. The kids had their iPad's to the eyepiece imaging the event . Many other notable events as well. Observing the Transit of Venus. Club members were over on the foreshore that day, and most were imaging the event. Left my ED80 as visual, and had hundreds of people walking past, observe Venus through the ED80. Put my Samsung phone to eyepiece, and took image of the transit. Six months later, we had 80% solar eclipse on the Goldcoast. Was again set up on the foreshore, as most of club members had gone to Cairns, far north Queensland to observe total eclipse. Had several schools arrange to view the event through our scopes. Same day also had my PST and ED80 setup as well. Again members of the public walking past were also invited to observe through my 10" dob. One of our other club members actually imaged the ISS passing over the face of the moon, and the pic he took, actually finished up been on NASA's website as photo of the day. Regularly see the ISS pass over our home. Observed the ISS about 3 weeks ago, and took about 3 to 4 minutes to travel from horizon to horizon, and was about 20 degrees above the western horizon

[Ibbo!]

Impacts on jupiter S/L9,2 total solar eclipses, aurora from Mull,night of the persid fireballs, peak of leonid shower and hale bop.

to name a few

[Paul73]

Comets and supernovae are special. Lovejoy and the sn in M82 spring to mind.

Jupiter and Saturn under great seeing (suddenly it looks like the pictures). I had one night where the seeing was great and I bagged all of the planets in my Dob.

Any dark night when I get to play in Leo, Vergo, Coma, Ursa Major, Pegasus, with a big scope. Galaxy heaven !!!

Getting all of the Messiers from my back garden. The last one was great (it had been a long wait).

Observing under a full moon during an eclipse. Naked eye Milky Way and an orange  full Moon. That was special.

Seeing a proper smoker of a fireball/meteorite.

And the list goes on.....

Paul

 

 

 

 

 

 

[cloudsweeper]

When I used magnification and averted vision on a dull fuzzy patch, and it suddenly exploded into a thrilling, dense ball of thousands of stars that constitute the Globular Cluster M3 in Canes Venatici.

Globs and open clusters in general really "do it" for me!

Doug.

[oobydooby]

Earlier this year I was at an outreach event with my Celestron 4" SCT.

Ken Kennedy said that I should be able to see the ring nebula, so I directed the 'scope and to my surprise was able to see it clearly defined.  I had never seen it before even in my 6" SCT.

That was a wow moment for me.

[Stu]

Quite a few for me:

Having the clouds part for around 6 minutes allowing me to see the transit of Venus in 2012 using my PST. We got up very early to see it, and I was all for giving up but my wife kept encouraging me to stay a little longer. So glad I did! I was amazed how big Venus appeared.

The partial solar eclipse in March 2015 was the most amazing day. I was at the SGL star party and I think we were in one of the few places in the U.K. with clear skies. It was a beautiful day, blue skies, and even though it was only about 90% eclipsed, at the fullest eclipse the sky definitely went dark and the birds went quiet, a very still feeling to the day. I was observing in both Ha and white light so had a fabulous time.

The lunar eclipse was another unexpected surprise. The forecast wasn't brilliant as I recall, but as it turned out I spent from about 11pm until 5am observing the whole event under lovely clear skies. The orange colour was wonderful and the fact that at full eclipse you could see faint stars near the moon I found incredible.

The Mercury transit in 2016 (I think?) was great too. Less dramatic than Venus as it is much smaller, but still, following much of the event was a real pleasure, particularly as there was some nice activity on the surface in white light too.

Finally, not a specific event, but the last opposition of Jupiter was just a fab opportunity to observe this ever changing planet. Shadow and moon transits, GRS, multiple bands, festoons, all just amazing to be able to see.

Some pictures attached to give a flavour, all of them iPhone specials

[Stub Mandrel]

1984, Llyn Morwynion in Southern Snowdonia. Seeing stars reflected in the lake and being able to read by starlight alone.

[LukeSkywatcher]

Without a shadow of a doubt (but with a bit of doubt now though), was comet Hale-Bopp back in 1997. I say "with a bit of doubt" because my father died in 1992, and i very much remember seeing a naked eye comet with him in the western sky which was there for weeks with 2 very bright distinct tails. In 1997, i was 23yrs old. The comet i remember seeing with dad was well before that. I was about 13-14 yrs old.

So 1987 would fit the time line better. Anyone know off hand of a similar comet back in 1987 which fits the above description?. I know it wasnt Halley. That was a few yrs earlier (1983-1984?).

[Stub Mandrel]

Wow, some tough Google-digging suggests it may have been Aarseth Brewington in 1989

http://www.icq.eps.harvard.edu/brightest.html

[LukeSkywatcher]

21 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Wow, some tough Google-digging suggests it may have been Aarseth Brewington in 1989

http://www.icq.eps.harvard.edu/brightest.html

Hmmmmm!!!. Seems like Brewington could be the likely suspect. All these yrs ive thought it was Hale-Bopp, but as i said....that doesnt fit in with my time-line.

Thanks for that. 

Now that one of my childhood memories has been dashed.............LOL, I have to go with the last total Lunar eclipse and/or the last major solar eclipse.

Then again....(thinking about it)...back when i was about 25yrs old, i was on holiday in Gran Canaria with mates and there was a meteor shower (Perseid). They were coming thick and fast. Many of them had brilliant bright sparkling tails behind them which looked like bonfire night "sparklers". 

 

[mikeDnight]

Mars 2003 through a Tak FS128. WOW!!!

Transit of Venus 2004 through a Tak FS128. Chance of a lifetime!!

Spectacular Venus apperition 2009 through a stunning 120 ED Pro. Amazing!!!

Too many comets to mention!

Notch of the Horse Head through a Tak FC100DC. Incredible!

An amazing apperition of Mars 2016 through a Tak FC100DC. Jaw dropping at times!

Too many things to list really!

Mike ?

 

[Gary170782]

Im not sure if it's possible or not but I'm thinking it is and just depending on where you live but has anyone seen the Hubble telescope through their telescope? 

[mikeDnight]

10 hours ago, Gary170782 said:

Im not sure if it's possible or not but I'm thinking it is and just depending on where you live but has anyone seen the Hubble telescope through their telescope? 

Yes! 

[BXRO]

There's some fantastic things out there think my best is first light on Saturn many years ago, there's been many more things since then but still think your first glimpse of those rings is unbeatable.

[Paz]

I got into astronomy after my wife got me some zoom binoculars for Christmas (the kind that experienced astronomers tell you not to get!). I went out to look at Jupiter as I knew it was visible.

I saw 4 faint dots in a line and I thought they must be moons even though I had no idea really. I checked on the internet and they were moons! I had no idea you could actually see anything like that directly and that was the biggest wow for me.

[Stub Mandrel]

30 minutes ago, Paz said:

I got into astronomy after my wife got me some zoom binoculars for Christmas (the kind that experienced astronomers tell you not to get!). I went out to look at Jupiter as I knew it was visible.

I saw 4 faint dots in a line and I thought they must be moons even though I had no idea really. I checked on the internet and they were moons! I had no idea you could actually see anything like that directly and that was the biggest wow for me.

Pity Galileo, he had to wait 400 years to check out his observations with Wikipedia!

[cloudsweeper]

Here are some of Galileo's observations on Jupiter and its moons - and we're all still doing it now!  I've yet to see a couple of them stacked at right angles to their "usual" dispositions - which does happen - though!

Doug.

[niallk]

One of my most impressive was naked eye coming out of a pub in Allihies in West Cork about 8yrs ago at ~2am in August: the sky was mind blowing.  As we stumbled back to our rented house, it was so dark that we couldn't distinguish the road from the ditch, but overhead - I've never seen so many stars and such a blazing milky way.

I started Googling astronomy after that night, came across SGL, and after reading lots, bought my 1st scope - a 10" dob

I've only had my 15" down to the Kerry gold tier dark skies reserve once since getting it (the next peninsula up) - but plan to get down a few times this year.

[LukeSkywatcher]

17 hours ago, niallk said:

One of my most impressive was naked eye coming out of a pub in Allihies in West Cork about 8yrs ago at ~2am in August: the sky was mind blowing.  As we stumbled back to our rented house, it was so dark that we couldn't distinguish the road from the ditch, but overhead - I've never seen so many stars and such a blazing milky way.

I started Googling astronomy after that night, came across SGL, and after reading lots, bought my 1st scope - a 10" dob

I've only had my 15" down to the Kerry gold tier dark skies reserve once since getting it (the next peninsula up) - but plan to get down a few times this year.

What's more impressive is the fact that you were driving from cork to Kerry and ended up in Clare.?

[ronl]

Saturn was my first WOW moment, and it still gives the same thrill, but the Veil gave me a 

different feeling, sort of WOW but with a haunting feeling, it's a wonderful sight to behold. 

[Pondus]

-Aurora (Northern Norway). It Practically covered the whole night sky.

- Jupiter March 6. 2016  Double moon/shadowtransit. Moon and shadows where 'connected', totally side by side. Perfect seeing.

- Tracking ISS manually with a dob for maybe 30-40 secs. Amazing details.

- First time Saturn. Looked cartoonish.

- Truly dark skies, you struggle to find Cassiopeia for all the stars

these are not really 'wow' moments, more speechless moments ....

 

Rune