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In my view, patience and persistence at the eyepiece are key ingredients to being able to claim genuine observations of objects at or just beyond the limits of observation. Because there are so many variables involved and observations can be very subjective, am always a little sceptical of other’s claims that they have able to spot an object immediately. Indeed, in these cases it can be argued that the object is not at or beyond the limits of observation.
There are quite a few objects that I have logged definite observations for that have required significant time at the eyepiece. I don’t specifically recall “hour long sessions” but certainly I have spent 20-40 minutes at the eyepiece on many occasions to log difficult observations. My discipline is a minimum of 7 sightings before I will log a definite observation.
Obviously one needs to be very comfortable at the eyepiece to achieve these difficult observations. I have a comfortable adjustable chair, freezer suits, light hoods etc - comfort is paramount. Also, I only use eyepieces with at least 20mm of eye relief to ensure eye comfort. I use a TRex mount with Argo Navis with long flexible drive handles (comfort at the eyepiece) which allows me the flexibility to induce motion to improve the chances of detecting the faintest of images.
I get quite a high when I do manage to log these difficult "at the limits" observations.
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