You might want to check and/or post in another topic called "when you watch the sky", which is one my faves by the way.... when Markus was aroung to keep it alive 
.
Nice topic, thanks for mentioning it Aluqak!
I started Stargazing in the year 1995 I think, because two of my friends started also.
And back then I wanted to fit into the society, unlike today...
I bought binoculars 20x50mm, I think, when I was in Russia in 1997. It's funny I bought them in Kaluga, the birth town of
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky!
But not long after that they fell on the concrete ground and got broken. I was like this
so my parents had to buy me a bigger, once again
a bigger(
) telescope in Hungary, 60mm refractor. I was like this
Most of my stargazing experience comes from that one.
I've observed Venus and its phases, Moon, Mars during the Great Opposition in 2005, Jupiter with its belts and 4 Galilean moons, Saturn with its rings and Uranus Aluqak...
I repeat,
Uranus Aluqak.
I've also observed Andromeda Galaxy, Pinwheel Galaxy, M81 & M82 Galaxies, Pleiades(
), Ha & Chi clusters, a lot of globular clusters, Orion Nebula, Dumbbell Nebula and so on. I've also observed a lot of double stars, like for example Albireo, the head of
MissSwan... And I projected the Sun through the telescope onto a sheet of paper and observed the sunspots. But since the eyepiece was a low-quality plastic one (as well as the whole telescope), it melted down!
After that I didn't observe the Sun anymore with the telescope...
Except for this VERY rare event:
Unlike Mercury, Venus crosses the Sun very rarely, once in 100 years approximately. The last such event occurred on 8th June 2004, and before that back in 1882! My friend and I projected the 2004 crossing through a telescope onto a sheet of paper and photographed it! You are not supposed to look directly at the Sun... you'll get instant, painless and irreversable eye damage! 
Oh, and right now I have even spotted Mercury in the dusk. It's rather bright, but always so close to the Sun that you only get a few chances per year to see it - at middle latitudes, that is. Closer to the poles it's even harder to find, closer to the equator much easier. And now I have spotted it, even through thin wisps of clouds, while on the moon the earthshine is becoming visible.
I've also spotted Mercury ONCE in my whole life!
It was October 200?, early in the morning, half an hour before the sunrise.
Mercury is very hard to spot because it's very near the Sun. A lot of things need to come together in order to have a good sight of it:
1. it needs to be in the greatest elongation (apparently farthermost from the Sun on the firmament)
2. the date needs to be near the spring or autumn equinox
3. Mercury needs to be in the morning sky if it is autumn and in the evening sky if it is spring (because the angle between the horizon and the ecliptic is the greatest at that time)
4. The greatest elongation needs to be as great as possible (and that varies because Mercury revolves the Sun along an ellipse)
5. AND OF COURSE, the sky needs to be clear!
Near the horizon... which is a rare occasion!
Something can be tolerated a little (except for 5
) but you got the idea why is it so hard to spot Mercury.
Ah, and the eclipse was in 1999. My first total solar eclipse. I was clouded out :bawling: but found it extremely impressive, anyway - the sudden darkness, the bright horizon, the strange colours. Even below the clouds I felt the strong impact.
That was my first total solar eclipse! I was lucky it was in my country Serbia.
I was also clouded but, fortunately, I had a 10 seconds hole in the clouds so I DID see the Sun eclipsed!
Became TSE addicted back then...
The next great event is the solar eclipse on March 29th. I'll be in Turkey if all goes well and bask in the umbral shadow for the third time in my life. :w00t:
I was in Turkey too, in some small desert town 100km east of Konya. Karapanar was its name. It's interesting that Markus told me he was also in some small desert town 100km east of Konya. Maybe we were in the same town!
Btw, me and my friends were supposed to be in Konya but we heard about the clouds coming from the west, so we decided to leave Konya in the last minute... ad hoc... and head to the east. Maybe that is the same reason Markus left Konya... Still, we didn't manage to escape from the clouds, but luckily those were the wispy clouds - cirrus(
) so we did see the eclipse! I saw all the most important features - the dimond ring, all contacts, the corona, the totality and even the dancing shadows on a wall 30 seconds prior to the first contact!
Though I must admit I didn't see the chromosphere... maybe because of the cirrus...
Next TSE is to be in Novosibirsk and
NTSMS will go there...
Can't wait...
another unusual sight is to be seen these days: The comet 17/P Holmes returns approximately every 7 years, but it's usually a very faint object - far too faint to be seen with the naked eye, and even too faint to be of interest to most telescope skygazers. But a few days ago it went through a dramatic outburst and increased in brightness several 100.000 times! Now it's easily visible as a star-like object of medium brightness, visible to the naked eye even from light-polluted cities! Many observers even report that they see it as fuzzy object, disk-like, a small nebula.
Saw it!
In December, couple of days after Budapest NTSMS reunion. Both with naked eye and with my new telescope. Speaking about my new telescope...
Here is a fresh photo of me... and my best friend! Unfortunately, he is immobile... 
I bought it couple of months ago here in Berlin... Schmidt-Cassegrain 10 inches. Compared to it, the old one I have is just a toy...
I transported it to Serbia in December, however out of two weaks I stayed there, only one day the sky was clear... and it was marvelous...
Btw, that day I saw the comet 17/P Holmes...
I'll try to keep this thread alive and updated.
I'll be glad to answer some questions though I must say you shouldn't expect so good answers Markus used to give. I don't have nearly so much stargazing experience like he, and to be honest I've barely stargazed during the last 5 years!
Because I moved to the city after living in a countryside. Knowing what a night sky I used to have and seeing what I have now, I completely lost the will...
@Lucy: there, I hope you are happy now!
26th & 27th time and still counting...
