Finding astronomical events (when something like a solar eclipse, full moon or planetary alignment happens) is an important part of astronomy. I know I am always wanting to see something out of the ordinary, and these types of astronomical events charts help me with that.
One particular set of astronomical events that are always on my list are meteor showers. These are the best astronomical events there are for doing outreach as you can have a large group outside having fun watching for them. It is also one of the few astronomical events where you can make it into a party that lasts for hours. Get out the drinks, fire up the grill, make a contest out of who sees the most. Fun!
These are upcoming astronomical events that I think are more important to the observer and astrophotographer primarily in North America and include all of the rare (and many not-so-rare) astronomical events I know of. I have left out much of the things I think are fluff such as when planets are closest and furthest away as that is really only important to people who want to image particular planets. If you know of an important astronomical event that I have missed, please use the contact form to let me know.
Data credits
Targets: OpenNGC by Mattia Verga (CC-BY-SA-4.0). Dark nebulae: E. E. Barnard, Catalogue of 349 Dark Objects in the Sky (1927). Places: GeoNames (CC-BY-4.0). Place search data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Sky calculations: Astronomy Engine by Don Cross (MIT). Images: Digitized Sky Survey, STScI/NASA, colored and healpixed by CDS. This research made use of hips2fits, a service provided by CDS. Comet and asteroid orbits: NASA/JPL Small-Body Database and Horizons. Weather data from the National Weather Service. Meteor showers: compiled from the IMO Working List of Visual Meteor Showers.
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