I have a few bests as well in no particular order.
1. When I was about 14, one third quarter moon (know that now, didn't then)
dad got out an old Unitron 4" f15 ota he picked up from navy surplus. It
had no mount or finder and he nailed 2 2x4's together in an A frame to prop
the objective on. We spent about 2 hours sitting in the grass looking at
the moon with the focuser propped on another 2x4. That was the start of my
interest in astronomy. Dad always said he wanted to get a mount for the
scope but it never happened.
2. Finding M51 from my backyard in Santa Rosa January 2000, it took two
nights and about 4 hours but I did it (it wasn't a pretty sight...a grown
man hopping around in a bath robe...good thing I was by myself and it was
dark) this with my new to me early 80's C8 that came by the way of the
aforementioned Unitron, after seeing what it would cost to sufficiently
mount and outfit the 5 foot long tube, I traded it for the C8 with a bunch
of goodies. I was so stoked I spent the every night of the first two weeks
out observing, not a single cloud and warm weather in January.
3. Markarhian's Chain unexpectedly - I had always wanted to go through the
chain but didn't know where it was. One evening at Lake Sonoma with my 12
year old friend Pete, I decided to go through the M's in Coma and Virgo and
started with M85. With Pete holding my SA2000 and acting as navigator we
galaxy hopped (Pete proudly "coined" that term) backwards through the chain
ending up a M84 find out a few minutes later that we had just observed the
chain. The best part of that night was gaining a new observing partner,
Pete now comes over to observe from my backyard on a regular basis.
4. Comet Hyukatake from 7000 feet in the middle of nowhere Idaho. The area
is Bortle scale 1 dark, I swear you could read by the Milky Way. The comet
was like a bright cold flame, blue-white and beautiful stretching across an
awesome canvas.
Cheers,
Dave