Back in the day this was one of my favorite threads on the Astronomy Magazine forums .
A lot of members posted their nightly observation sessions either that night or the following morning .
It was a pretty busy thread as many members posted regularly and many posted every night of the week .
What did you view ?
How were the seeing conditions and the transparency from your location ?
Did you set up only to find lousy seeing condition and tear everything down and put it all away ?
What magnifications and or filters did you use to get the best view ?
What was the temperature , wind and weather conditions like from your location or any other details of your viewing session that might be of interest ?
Did your dog run into your tripod and knock your alignment out ? Etc . Etc .
Post your nightly experiences here .
Oh Yes yes yes ! 
Oh yes !
Now it’s exactly midnight. Still waiting for the skies to clear…
Nikolai.
last night I got to show my son Betelgeuse, mars, Jupiter, Venus. and a passing satellite. just happed to be outside at teh right time
Yesterday (17/02/2025)
Had some views, but not super clear. Clouds covering the horizon, and some stars high in the sky with the famous Orion clearly visible. Saw the Orion nebula with my scope and saw some details. But, after some times, oh bad, clouds covered everything 
.
Nikolai.
Today (18/02/2025)
Nothing visible, fully covered with clouds. Skies don’t permit any observation.
Nikolai.
19/02/2025
Nice views of Venus, Jupiter, Mars and orion in the evening for little times after the sunset. After having the dinner and everything, I came to start my session, then, oh All cloudy! .
Nikolai.
This winter was rather tough. The clouds came in mid November and stayed with us thru February. The skies cleared a bit in February but we had two polar vortex sit on us for a couple weeks which makes observing impossible for me. Just last week i had my first session of the year, after a 125 night interruption.
Wow ! In the desert southwest, we are spoiled brats .
20/02/2025 (so late, they didn’t allow me to comment, I’ve commented a lot!, and I had to wait for another one to comment 
)
No views, nothing, only clouds. Weather isn’t permitting me! The beauty is, the sky’s all blue in the daytime and the right opposite at night.
Nikolai.
Yeah Ohio is one of the worst states for astronomy. The mid west is a transition area for weather. We get gulf coast moisture slamming into stuff coming down from Canada. Toss in some occasional stuff off the west coast and a jet stream that seems to like to sit on us for days and days on end and there are Ohio skies
Commenting is over rated .
No , but seriously , I’m at 35 degrees north latitude in the Mohave desert . With the arid climate and clear nights 95% of the time , the biggest factor that ruins things is wind . We can have some pretty windy times with gusts that will reach 50 mph . Aside from that other tasks in life get in the way of observing sessions like playing gigs on Friday and Saturday nights . Then recuperating on Sunday and even Monday nights . There was a time when I’d have two scopes out tracking for hours every night of the week . I miss the days when planning the next nights observations was the only thing I was doing .
Here the yearly average humidity is 75 to 80 percent. As summer progesses we push into the 90 percent area. So we always are looking through some sort of soup. Most nights i am stick between 90 and 150x, a good night is 200x. I still work so i only have Friday and Saturday nights. When you get up at 0400 astronomy mid week is not a thing
I typically observe Jupiter at around 120x depending on seeing conditions with backing down to maybe 90x and hitting maybe 150x depending on the stability of the atmosphere . It can change from hour to hour . Sometimes for the better or sometimes for the worst . I typically push Saturn a bit higher with good results . Like 150x to 160x . When it comes to DSOs , magnification is all over the place depending on what object you’re viewing . All the optimum magnifications for each DSO I have logged so it takes the guesswork out of re visiting the favorites . At least I have a good starting point and can adjust up or down slightly depending on seeing conditions . Atmospheric turbulence being the biggest factor since transparency is most always good in such an arid climate . And for Lunar , it all depends on what you desire at any point whether it’s just scanning up and down the terminator of zeroing in on details of craters or mountain ranges . I’ll observe at 31x to grab Andromeda in it’s entirety (almost) and all the way up to 381x on Saturn producing a pristine image through my 8 inch on a couple back to back nights a few years ago with 7 moons in view . Every night is different and we won’t even get into filters here . There’s another thread for that topic .
I have gotten pretty decent at reading my sky. So if i dont like what i am seeing up there, i dont bother setting up. I also check a jet stream map. If it is parked on us, forget about it.
I’ve set up on plenty of nights when it was crappy seeing in the beginning but an hour later it cleared up and ended up being a great night . On the other hand , I’ve set up just to tear back down as it didn’t improve . That was only a few times though . Usually it’ll stabilize an hour or so after dark if it wasn’t stable to begin with . It can be a crap shoot at times though .
I have set up and tore down so many times. I dont even want to think about it lol
I remember going out to a star party years ago a couple hours from home to a dark sky site in the desert . At the time i was living in the suburbs and DSOs were pathetic . Only did Lunar and Planetary from the backyard . Got out to the star party and the wind came up . I hung out for awhile but never took my scopes out of the crates . A couple hours went by and i just headed home .
I have often thought about heading to the almost heaven star party in WV. Just to check it out, but the more i think about it, the more i realize it probably isnt for me. By the way… I am envious of your skies. Just saying!!
Here is a story about the best night i have had so far. Its good for a read if nothing else lol.
Last year in August we had this huge line of super cell thunderstorms roll across the State, nothing uncommon for Ohio. It did everything you would expect, massive thunderstorms, lightning and yes even three tornados. By late afternoon it all cleared away and you could watch the barometer rise. It was clearing and clearing fast. I rolled the dice and set the 16 inch and 10 inch dob up and waited for darkness. It didnt take long to discover that i had a very unexpectedly great night on my hands. The sky was dead calm. Transparency was as good as i had ever seen it, and it was extra dark. Normally we are Bortle 4, when we get extra dark i call it Bortle 3. I was crushing anything that i looked at with both scopes. It was like i was seeing them for the first time. The wife was on her way home from work around midnight and she texted me asking if i had looked at Saturn yet. I had not, so i plugged it into the go to of the 16 inch and centered Saturn at 200x. It was a great image. I noticed that it was a perfect image. There was no pulsing, it just stayed in focus. I grabbed another eyepiece that got me to 300x. Still in focus. This was unreal. I grabbed another eyepiece that got me to 400x… Just the slightest hint of a pulse in the focus. It was the most amazing image of Saturn that i have ever gotten. I have yet to duplicate that night in the last year. Usually i am stuck at 150x or less. I need another night like that