Are there any amateur astronomers in this forum? What is the most curious thing that you have managed to observe?

[Earthbound Spartan]

I'm just the classic Saturn's rings guy due to the power (not much) of my telescope.

[SOXBLOX]

Well, I'd say it was probably catching a microscopic glimpse of a number of galaxies in Leo. The realization that I was seeing billions of stars at distances of millions of light-years (or ~1/3 as many parsecs) was humbling. I love observing, even though my location isn't the best. Dark skies, but humid air.

[Earthbound Spartan]

47 minutes ago, SOXBLOX said:

I love observing, even though my location isn't the best. Dark skies, but humid air.

Been there! Except for the fact that I must wait until 2 or 3 am for some dark skies. About the humid air... I live in a tropical country...

You should try (if you haven't alredy) to watch some globular clusters. They are pretty great for me to watch, even when weather conditions are not optimals.

[SOXBLOX]

Oh, yeah! M13 is one of my favorites. It was the first globular I ever identified. The first time I went out observing, I tried to find it, but failed. The next night, I found it accidentally by panning my scope around slowly. So annoying! 

If you're in the tropics, you probably get to see Omega Centauri, right? I wish I could see it, but from here, it would be just a couple degrees above the horizon.

Edited June 8, 2020 by SOXBLOX

[cubinator]

I saw a meteor strike the Moon during the January 2019 lunar eclipse. I didn't know it until the next day when many videos emerged of the flash right where I'd seen it!

[StrandedonEarth]

Just a regular pair of binocs trained on the Pleiades was enough to trigger the thought "My Kod! It's full of stars!

[Earthbound Spartan]

1 hour ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Just a regular pair of binocs trained on the Pleiades was enough to trigger the thought "My Kod! It's full of stars!

First time I feel that, I was using an old spyglass from a friend of mine... Good old times!

[benzman]

Many years ago I was in an astronomy club and one night we organised an observation of a lunar grazing occultation. (google it). Briefly, it was a pre-spacecraft method of measuring the height of mountains on the limb of the moon.

 

[Mr. Peabody]

I wouldn't consider myself a true amateur astronomer.

I have, however, managed to observe both a total solar and total lunar eclipse. The latter with my refracting telescope.

[Earthbound Spartan]

48 minutes ago, Mr. Peabody said:

I wouldn't consider myself a true amateur astronomer.

I have, however, managed to observe both a total solar and total lunar eclipse. The latter with my refracting telescope.

That sounds pretty "amateur astronomer" for me! Specially the refracting telescope. There are others, more tenacious observers, out there with just a good pair of binoculars. 

[SOXBLOX]

If you ain't a professional, and you're doing astronomy, guess what you are! 

[lajoswinkler]

I ws lucky to witness both Venus transits, several Mercury transits, but the latest thing that really struck me was seeing a thin crescent Venus with its horn edges going over 180°. Light spilling through atmosphere. It was beautiful, although not extreme as this.

[benzman]

Completely forgot. I viewed t he last Venus transit, projected it from my telescope onto a card and got a photo. The photo is on my PC.  I take it I cannot link directly to an image on my PC?

 

[cubinator]

1 hour ago, benzman said:

Completely forgot. I viewed t he last Venus transit, projected it from my telescope onto a card and got a photo. The photo is on my PC.  I take it I cannot link directly to an image on my PC?

 

Nope, most people here upload pictures to Imgur.

[Entropian]

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Edited August 17, 2022 by Entropian
going through old posts

[EchoLima]

I haven't really done any observing independently, but I did look through the Mamalluca Observatory (touristic telescope near the Atacama Desert in Chile). I saw Jupiter's bands and moon, Saturn's rings and moons, and some stellar cluster. Pretty amazing to see with my own eyes. And even just seeing the clear night sky, with the Milky Way band, in Chile was incredible.

Edited July 9, 2020 by EchoLima

[Entropian]

8 hours ago, EchoLima said:

And even just seeing the clear night sky, with the Milky Way band, in Chile was incredible.

I got that kind of view in the deserts of New Mexico as well.  When there's no light pollution, the sky looks really beautiful.  It really shows how there's so many stars that you can't see in developed areas.

[Atraxa]

Where I live, only Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Moon (half of the month) and 3 stars are visible on a cloudless night, so I don't get to observe much, but I take my telescopes out every single night that it is possible to observe. It's like a drug looking at Europa's shadow on Jupiter's surface.

[Lewie]

Lately, I have been able to spot many shooting stars. It was quite a show when one splashed down into the lake, not more then 20 meters away from our dock.

[Gargamel]

Tried to get photos of NEOWISE tonight.   Couldn't even really see it.   But I shot anyways.    Annnnnnd.. never set the focus.   >:( 

But I did find this nifty little resource:  https://stellarium.org/ 

They have an offline and online version.  

[YNM]

I don't have some fancy motor tracker setup, so the most interesting stuff I've captured are just star clusters. I've seen Andromeda before but it was so dim so I was quite disappointed. (no tracker motor, no hope of some kinda long integration time shots.)

 

If anything, the most exciting and memorable stuff I've witnessed are eclipses.

No, not capturing them; Experiencing them.

It's a nice reminder - that one can see without any kind of instruments - that everything in the universe do move about.

Edited July 15, 2020 by YNM

[SOXBLOX]

On 7/13/2020 at 11:46 AM, Lewie said:

Lately, I have been able to spot many shooting stars. It was quite a show when one splashed down into the lake, not more then 20 meters away from our dock.

Funny.

[s_gamer101]

Last christmas, I saw a lot of starlink satellites that were launched a few days (or just one day, I'm not sure anymore) ago. I didn't know what it was when I saw them for the first time, so I just saw a lot of strange little ligths in a row that were slowly moving across the sky and I was like "Umm, what is that?!"

[Sien]

They say that the Planet Parade was recently but I missed everything. I'm even sorry (