Recently I’ve been part of a debate about the concept of what constitutes seeing an object. The object in question is the Abell GC 2065 and a preported observation using a 12.5” scope. The observers blog and the observation is here and it’s the last on the page. http://s00639.blogspot.com/2018/05/a...-ngc-5897.html
I’m inclined to say the object was observed even though it was minimal. He did the best he could with the tools and conditions he had available.

An observation is always limited in one way or another. Sometimes with a very low surface brightness face on galaxy it may only be the core that’s visible. With large supernova remnants maybe it’s only a few of the brighter strands detected. With a galaxy cluster, observing all of the galaxies involve is usually impossible and is totally dependent on sky conditions and aperture.

So that’s my question, how much of an object needs to be seen before you consider it an observed object. I guess you could add to this do you require a repeat observation to truly verify the observation. Adding a sketch to the observation to me is the icing on the cake.

Bill