Back in either it was 99' or it might've been 2000'; I was living up in the Sierra Nevada area in Grass Valley, CA. Very clear skies at night there with great visibility of the constellations.
Anyway, it was on the news that summer that the Leonids would be visible everywhere in the night during the early hours for a few nights. Leonids are basically ice balls storming in hitting our stratosphere. It's an extremely rare occurence to see massive amounts coming in all at once. I got up at 1 or 2 in the morning to see it. Now that was amazing to see. It was like 20 to 30 shooting stars going on all at once in all directions that went on for hours.
The other thing that was really cool was the almost full eclipse during daytime during the early 90's. I recall being under a tree and the sunlight coming thru onto the ground made numerous crescent shaped moons of the sun on the asphalt below me.
