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I would add that a lot of visual astronomy is about pushing your visual acuity to its limits. Fine details are often transient because of atmospheric conditions. You'll get a flash of detail and have to wait a moment to be sure when the same detail flashes again. The longer you look the more you'll see in grabs and spurts.
But I would also say about half of it is knowing what your selected object is supposed to look like and what additional details can be seen. The rings of Saturn are easy to see, but can you see the Cassini division? How about the Encke Division? The C ring? Any cloud detail? How many moons can you spot? Programs like Jupiter 2 can help you know where the red spot is at any one time, or which moons are doing what. A good lunar program can help you find fine details on the moon. And faint fuzzies are *faint. You'll be stretching your eyes to the limit to try to grab those photons that give you more detail. In images they look like the fires of the universe, but through a telescope they look like gossamer thin balloons or bits of cotton streched across the night sky. You have to work to be sure of what you're seeing, and again, knowing what the target looks like gives you a good indication of what you're trying to see.
And on top of that, knowing about what you're looking at increases the sense of wonder. When you spot Titan you know it has an atmosphere thicker than earth's. On Mars, you catch a glimpse of Olympus Mons and know that if you stuck that volcano at the bottom of Earth's Mariana trench, it'd still tower 2km higher than everest.
It's kind of an extreme sport for the senses. And yes, as with other extreme sensorial pursuits, like wine tasting or audiophile listening it can disappear into the void between perception and invention, but don't let that ruin the fun. As long as you're enjoying it, that's what counts :-)
Markus
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