And maybe I’m just sentimental, but once when Jupiter was high around 11pm and the sky was clear for several nights in a row, I just gazed through my binocs each night with jaws agape. The neatest thing was that the little buggers moved over the course of those few nights. Wow!
Aurorae. My goodness, bibliophage. 
I think everybody’s said everything…
Never mind, you edited it. :smack:
Who? Little old me? Would I ever abuse my moderatorial privileges just to fix a spelling error? Perish the thought.
Sprites, Jets, and Elves over thunderstorms.
[QUOTE=Polycarp]
[list][li] six planets – Mercury, Venus (near sunset or sunrise as appropriate), Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus[/li][/QUOTE]
Uranus can be seen by some with the naked eye if they know exactly where to look. However, it ain’t that easy. No ancient culture (AFAIK) was aware of this planet, and it took the telescope to discover it.
Just a side note: while most satellites are pretty dim to watch, the International Space Station is extremely bright; it can’t be mistaken for anything else in the sky. For those who are interested, I recommend clicking on a city near you to find out when it’ll be visible and you can see it:
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/cities/index.cgi
Down my pants? :eek:
[sup]Sorry… I’m tired, and it made me chuckle![/sup]
If you’re lucky, Meteor strikes on the moon.
The Iridum flares can even be seen in daylight, sometimes.
Go to Heavens Above, enter your location and then select “Daytime flares” to see when they are over the next 7 days.
You can see the shuttles launch if you’re within a surprisingly far distance from the launchpad - from Fernandina Beach a Florida launch is a fast-moving red dot, but you can’t miss it. It’s pretty cool. (I’d never know I was looking at the Shuttle in orbit, but on launch it’s unmistakable.)
That’s a good point. I remember seeing ICBMs launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base (while I was in LA) a couple of times. It was quite a sight.
You can see the shuttle from Raleigh, if it’s a night launch, and it’s headed for the space station. It will appear low (just above) the eastern horizon moving swiftly from south to north. Tres cool.
Here in LA, we occasionally see rocket exhaust trails from sunset or early evening launches from Vandenburg AFB. They are quite spectacular, actually, since upper level wind shears disperse the exhaust over a large area, and they remain sunlit long after darkness falls on the ground.
I’ve also seen a Pegasus launch that took place far out over the Pacific from my porch in Pasadena. But given the amount of air traffic here it was rather unspectacular to anyone who didn’t know what it was.
Perhaps it was a meteor like the one that exploded over northern NSW yesterday.
Oh, I beg to differ.
You might get lucky and see a weather balloon and think you’ve seen a UFO :smack:
While the Galilean moons are all bright enough individually, I’m not sure it’s actually possible to pick them out from Jupiter’s glare with the naked eye.
And strictly speaking, you can see seven planets with the naked eye at night :D.
One could also “see” primary or secondary cosmic rays, if one happened to interact with your retina (unlikely but possible). It’s estimated that one or two people on the planet saw a tiny flash of light from the neutrinos from Supernova 1987a.
And on that subject, you can also see a nova or supernova, if you look at the right time.