Some meaningful astronomy events in my life:

• Seeing Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) in the chilling morning of Nov. 19
• Spotting Comet C/2011 L4 (PANSTAARS) from Prospect Hill in Somerville
• Seeing huge and unexpectedly-bright Comet 17P / Holmes repeatedly in 2007 Oct.
• Seeing Comet C/2006 P1 (McNaught), the brightest comet in 40 years, for several evenings in 2007 January
• Webcam imaging of planets: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.
• The "World Series Lunar Eclipse in 2004 Oct. 27
• Transit of Venus on 2004 June 8
• The closest opposition of Mars in 60,000 years in 2003 August 28 (and the  "perfect seeing" I experienced one day later)
• Working at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
• Being able to see Comet Hale-Bopp from my living room for week after week in 1997
• Being able to see Comet Hayakutake visibly moving as I watched in 1996
• Hiking from the Visitor Center to the top of Mauna Kea in 1995
• Seeing the Great Solar Eclipse of July 11, 1991, from a ship in the Sea of Cortez
• Visiting Pasadena in August of 1989 and watching images coming down live from Voyager 2 as it made its ring-plane crossing at Neptune
• Being at 12,000 ft. in Bolivia, on the shores of Lake Titicaca in 1987, and seeing the southern Milky Way for the first time
• Visiting Pasadena and seeing images of Uranus' moons coming down live from Voyager 2 in January of 1986
• Seeing Halley's Comet from Walden Pond in 1985
• Seeing Comet Bennett
• Seeing a near-total solar eclipse on Cape Cod in 1970 March