Astronomy wishlist
I'm a shameless stargazer - I tend to bump into people at night because I'm looking up at the stars, not where I'm going. I've been that way since I was given a book on Science, sometime around 1972.

So I've long had a list of things I want to see/do. I've managed quite a few:

- See a really spectacular comet √ (Hale-Bopp of course)
- Touch a moonrock √ (In fact I am right now - I'm wearing a moonrock ring)
- See all the naked-eye planets √ (saw Uranus* for the first time last week!)
- See the southern sky, particularly the Magellanic clouds √
- See a meteor fireball √

The rest I haven't achieved yet:

- See a total eclipse of the Sun (I managed to be on the wrong fucking continent in 1999!)
- See the aurora
- See a meteor storm
- Experience free-fall
- Walk on the moon (Come on Richard Branson, I can't wait forever)

* Please try to resist "Ur anus" jokes. Oh go on then, if you must
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Thu 14 Oct 2010, 14:29, 3 replies)

Orionids are in a week
Oct (21st/)22nd, peaking at 00:00 - 04:00.

Go find somewhere dark and out of the way. Still only 20-40 per hour (more in the southern hemisphere), but easy to find the radiant point (just off the reddish star in Orion), so quite easy to spot
( Tedium Alduce me to interlow myself., Thu 14 Oct 2010, 16:42, closed)

The aurora borealis
is a common sight round these parts (central Scotland).

I still love to see it, and the sun's at last waking up from its deep minimum so we should see a few displays in the coming years. The best I ever saw was in Shetland in April 2000 - it was right above us, all round the sky and bright greens and reds. Fantastic.

Edit - the Geminid meteors in mid December are usually pretty good - bright and frequent.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Thu 14 Oct 2010, 16:44, closed)

Cairns, Queensland.
November 13, 2012. Total solar eclipse.
(uncle_bud is not the jelly roll king., Fri 15 Oct 2010, 2:43, closed)