Observing Meteors, Comets, Supernovae and other Transient Phenomena

1 Introduction.- 2 Meteors.- 2.1 The Leonids: A Storm Coming?.- 2.1.1 The Quiet-time Leonids, 1970–1993.- 2.1.2 On the Rise: 1994–1996.- 2.1.3 The Possible Storm Years: 1997–2000.- 2.1.4 Observing the Leonids.- 2.2 The Perseids: The Unexpected Rise of “Old Faithful”.- 2.3 Other Showers in Outburst.- 2.4 Fireballs.- 3 Aurorae and other Atmospheric Phenomena.- 3.1 Auroral Storms.- 3.1.1 The Causes of Auroral Activity.- 3.1.2 Auroral Substorms.- 3.1.3 Geomagnetic Storms.- 3.1.4 Observing the Aurora.- 3.2 Noctilucent Clouds.- 3.2.1 Observing Noctilucent Clouds.- 3.3 Synthetic Atmospheric Phenomena.- 4 The Sun.- 4.1 Observing the Sun in White Light.- 4.2 Monochromatic-light Observations: The Sun in Hydrogen-alpha.- 4.3 Solar Eclipses.- 5 The Moon.- 5.1 Transient Lunar Phenomena.- 5.2 Lunar Occultations.- 5.2.1 Observing Occultations.- 5.2.2 Grazing Occultations.- 5.2.3 Electronic Observing.- 5.3 Lunar Eclipses.- 6 The Planets.- 6.1 Venus.- 6.1.1 Transits of Mercury and Venus.- 6.2 Mars.- 6.3 Jupiter.- 6.3.1 The Shoemaker-Levy 9 Impacts of 1994 July.- 6.4 Saturn.- 6.5 Planetary Occultations.- 7 Small Bodies of the Solar System.- 7.1 Asteroids.- 7.1.1 Asteroid Occultations.- 7.2 The Galilean Satellites of Jupiter.- 7.2.1 Mutual Phenomena of Jupiter’s Satellites.- 7.3 Saturn’s Satellites.- 7.3.1 The Occultation of 28 Sagittarii by Titan.- 8 Comets.- 8.1 The Nature and Origin of Comets.- 8.2 Comet Discoveries.- 8.3 Observing Comets.- 8.3.1 Comet Ephemerides.- 8.3.2 Comet Magnitudes.- 8.3.3 Drawings: Coma and Tail Measurements.- 8.4 Comets in Outburst.- 8.5 Ion-tail Disconnections.- 8.6 The Great Comets of 1996 and 1997.- 8.6.1 Hale-Bopp in 1995.- 8.6.2 Hyakutake.- 8.6.3 Hale-Bopp at Its Best.- 9 Variable Stars.- 9.1 Eclipsing Binaries.- 9.2 Cataclysmic Variables.- 9.3 Recurrent Novae.- 9.4 R Coronae Borealis Stars.- 10 Novae and Supernovae.- 10.1 Novae.- 10.1.1 Observing Novae.- 10.1.2 Visual Nova Patrols.- 10.1.3 Photographic Nova Patrols.- 10.2 Supernovae.- 10.2.1 Visual Searches.- 10.2.2 Photographic and CCD Searches.- 11 Information Sources.- 11.1 Atlases.- 11.2 Catalogues.- 11.3 Ephemerides, Annual Handbooks and News Sources.- 11.4 Software.- 11.5 The Internet.