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The observation that, I think, gave me the most satisfaction was to detect the brightest portion of Barnard's Loop using a pair of very high quality 10x50 binoculars, in a very dark and transparent sky. The slightest problem with the sky makes this giant and ghostly arc disappear.
Another highlight that springs to mind is a particular view of the Large Sagittarius Star Cloud, with a very high quality 10inch Newt. under anomalously good conditions.
The interesting experience of panning over this star cloud, even in a really dark and clear sky, usually resulted in me seeing only closely spaced stars in modest numbers (perhaps a hundred or so stars per every field..... or so it seemed to me) together with a background of grainy-looking nebulosity caused by the multitude (infinity!) of unresolved or semi-resolved very faint stars.
However, on that very special night, the unresolved or partly resolved Milky Background could be seen as great multitudes of tiny points extremely close together......similar to what can be seen in photos of this star cloud.
On that night, I had the feeling of "stars as grains of sand", and a real intuitive sense of the depth and scale of our galaxy.
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