lucky, err, vomit wrote:
what DEATHS of celestial objects have humans witnessed without a
telescope?

(not including meteors)? with the dates if possible.

*Without* a telescope? That means not even Shoemaker-Levy 9 is in
play, so you're probably limited to supernovae in our galaxy. So,
Kepler's in 1604, Tycho's in 1572, another one in Cassiopeia in 1181,
the Crab in 1054, Lupus in 1006, and two more reported by the Chinese
in 393 and 183, in Scorpius and Centaurus, respectively.

If we include supernovae in the telescopic era that were observed
without a telescope, you can add on at least the 1987 supernova in
the Large Magellanic Cloud. I don't know of any other supernovae
that were definitely visible (as such) to the unaided eye since
Kepler's supernovae, although to be sure, S Andromedae in 1885 must
have been close to visible, if not actually visible.

Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.txt