Large, spectacular spiral galaxy with a gross magnitude of 8.4, two magnificent arms and a very shiny core. Elongated towards N-S, which is also the direction of the two arms. The Southern arm looks brighter, while the Northern one larger and blurred. Only a quarter degrees away you can find its easily detectable companion, the NGC 4248 (12.5m). If you can see this tiny galaxy, you should take the chance to look around the M106 in a radius of 1-2 degrees, and observe the other members of the galaxy-group named after it. Around half a dozen of the smaller galaxies are brighter than 4248, and only a couple are similar or fainter.

This globular cluster is really breathtaking. More than a dozen of stars can be separated also with direct vision. By using averted vision, this number jumps to several dozens. It is not really getting denser towards the centre, although what we see is actually the core already: the real diametre of the cluster is actually 21', yet the half of its gross weight stays inside a circle of 1.1'.

The spiral galaxy of M51, better known as the Whirlpool-galaxy is one of the most famous Messier objects. Thanks to its position and high luminosity, it's a very easy and impressive target. The spiral arms of M51 look beautiful and sharp, and with a little patience you can see even the bridge of matter between it and its interacting companion (NGC 5195), also with direct vision.

A rather neglected globular in Hercules. I wonder why it is treated like this compared to M13, as it is very bright and spectacular, although its visible diameter is only about half of the more famous companion. Its core area even looks brighter than that of the M13, it looks less homogeneous. It behaves fine at higher powers, at 167x it looks perfectly split.

The famous Ring nebula of the Lyra constellation is well-known even for people less obsessed with astronomy. An interesting fact is that its visual surface brightness is about half magnitude better than its photographic surface brightness thanks to the elements that build up its spectra, therefore it's worth taking a look of this shiny planetary nebula with any kind of telescope. Its position is very easy: you can hardly miss it on the line connecting the stars beta and gamma Lyrae. Its central star (14.7m) was barely detectable for me if at all, even with averted vision. I think it demands darker skies. The UHC filter did not help much on the view, but large magnification is really neccessary.

On a night with a near fullmoon, when planetary nebulaes and galaxies are an impossible mission, brighter open clusters such as the M103 are still sparkling vividly in the eyepiece. The OC that's 6' in diameter can be located near the Delta Cas, especially spectacular on low magnification. In its neighborhood one may find such other interesting clusters like the Trumpler 1, the NGC 663 or the NGC 659, all of which worth a look even from light-polluted places.

The second largest open cluster of the constellation Cancer, right after the M44, which can also be seen with naked-eyes even under suburban skies. On a power of 71x, it fills the neary half degree field of vision. It was easily found: even the 8x50 finderscope displays it as a shiny little blur. The M67 is a nice, dense open cluster, with a members of high variety of brightness: there are about a dozen dominant stars of the 12th magnitude, but in the backround you can easily detect stars of 13-14m. The entire population visible to me were at least 100 stars, however the background looks really diffuse, so I assume there must be plenty of even dimmer stars in this cluster.

The famous double galaxy of Ursa Maior is an easy target with any kind of telescope. The brighter M81 spiralgalaxy can be detected even in the finderscope. Its smaller and fainter companion, the irregular M82 is interesting especially when looking at larger magnification levels, with several clearly detectable dense areas. Looks best when having a FoV of at least 1°, as in that case both of the galaxies can be fit into one picture. The nearby NGC 3077 is also worth a look, although it's even smaller and fainter than the M82.

This triplet of galaxies always make me smile: I'm calling it a "dumb face" cluster. The M65-66 double is a classic, easy Messier-object: both can be well seen - perhaps the latter having a brighter, almost star-like core region. It's not clear for me why the NGC 3628 was left out of Messier's catalogue: it's not at all a difficult object either. Its brightness is quite close to that of M65 and while wandering around looking for its more famous companions, you may most probably bump into this one also.

Shiny, elongated galaxy near the famous Owl-nebula. Its core looks almost like a star, I estimate a brightness of around 12m. More dense parts are visible, the most notable is the very shiny area towards the Western end of the galaxy.

The M97, also known as the Owl-nebula is a very spectacular, famous planetary, in the vicinity of M108. It's a nearly regular circle, slightly elongated in E-W directions. Also on the Eastern and Western corner one can find two darker spots, the eyes of the owl. The planetary itself is quite an easy object, looks much brighter than the 11m as listed in catalogues, a homogenous shape with sharply fading edges. Discovering the eyes is a bit harder: especially the Western spot is tend to blink. Using your averted vision helps a lot to see the details. I was using my Baader UHC filter to finish this sketch, however according to my experiences a slightly better seeing helps much more than the filter.