A very large planetary nebula in the Cygnus constellation, also known as the Fetus nebula. Its naming perfectly suits its look, which is very conspicious. Its an asymetrical shell with widely varying brightness and an enormously shiny area to the NE. The central star is a 13.2 magnitude one, easily detectable because its surrounding dark areas. To the East from this you may notice another star of the similar colour and luminosity. I cannot see any hint of colour throughout the planetary. It's a nice object even at low powers of around 100x thanks to its relatively high surface brightness, therefore it may be a reachable target for small telescopes too. I've tried using my UHC filter, but the results were worse than without it.

A really faint galaxy with an almond shaped slightly brighter core. Small, yet easy to find, located just next to a bright, 10 magnitude star. It shows an interesting ring-like feature on photographs, therefore some suspect that this is a spiral galaxy at its early ages. SQM reading: 21.02 m/arcsec^2 8°C.

Also known as the Magic carpet nebula, this planetary is quite large, with a shape that fits its name well. The surface brightness varies widely, with a brighter larger part to the NW, and a smaller bright portion to the SE, divided by a fainter part. Its colour is remarkably blue, the dark parts are very spectacular with their deep shade of blue.

Sparsely populated, very large and very bright cluster, already visible with my tiny finderscope, nicely sitting in front of the Milky Way. Contains about a dozen bright stars with various luminosity. Has a fuzzy background to the NE thanks to out galaxy. This is my first sketch from Lipótfa, a tiny village surrounded by the Zselic Starry Sky Park - one of Europe's first Starry Sky Parks.

Appears in the finderscope as a fuzzy bright star near to another (real) star with similar brightness. This star can be seen in the sketch at NNW. Contains about a dozen bright stars but in the middle of the cluster I can see two stars that are noticeably brighter than the rest. Separates fine from its environment, no diffuse background can be detected. SQM reading: 21.08 m/arcsec², 1°C, high humidity.

Huge, sparse open cluster, with a background of the sparkling of the faint stars of the Milkyway. Bordered from the North by the 6.2mag star SAO 51632, which makes it easier to find the cluster. It consists around two dozens of bright stars of nearly the same luminosity (between 10 and 11 magnitudes) and colour. For me its most spectacular feature is the shape of a mirrored S North from its centre. Requires little magnification and a very wide field of vision.

Faint galaxy that looks pretty small, it only gets brighter near its tiny core, but that core is very bright compared to the rest of the body of the galaxy. The 11.1m luminosity that is stated in catalogues I find exaggerated. Its core resembles a blurred star, and according to my estimation, has a brightness of about 13.6m, while the average surface brightness of the galaxy I estimate at 14.1 magnitudes. Its shape is slightly elongated ellipse in the SW-NE directions, with a visible size of 2' x 2'10".

The open cluster can be seein in the upper right quarter of the FoV as a group of faint stars. It seems as if a winding tail connects the cluster to the East and this feature makes the object look very special. Separates fine from its surroundings. SQM reading: 21.14 m/arcsec², 0°C, heavy humidity.

NGC 7331 is a huge galaxy, elongated in the N-S direction, full of details. Its core is quite bright, raising out towards the West from the galactic plane. The Eastern side of the galaxy looks much larger, the whole surface seems strongly asymmetric. I estimate the brightness of the core to 12.6m, compared to nearby stars using data from the Hubble Guide Star Catalog (GSC), whereas the average brightness of the surface of the galaxy I estimate at 13.5m, which means that it should be visible for most mid-size telescopes under good sky conditions. I measure a size of 1'x6', although according to the large bright galactic core I suspect that it would look much larger under better conditions. To the South of NGC 7331 near the end of the half hour sketching period I've started to see another very subtle little spot which occured to be NGC 7335. To my own estimations, I found it has a surface brightness of about 14.2m, and a size of 0.5'x1.2'. There are more NGC objects visible in the eyepiece, like NGC 7326, 7333 and so on, however most of these were identified later as stars or double stars.

Two spectacular galaxies of similar size but different look, in a nice pattern, about perpendicular to eachother. NGC 7332 is a bit larger and much brighter, however visually I've seen it slightly smaller than its fainter companion. A reason for this might be its starlike, bright core, that is washing away the dimmer areas, and to which I estimate a brightness of about 12.7m. The galaxy is losing brightness smoothly toward its outer boundaries. NGC 7339 however does not have a starlike core, its surface looks perfectly homogeneous, it's has a shape of a cigar: faint and highly elongated. It has sharp edges. I estimate a surface brightness of 13.2m. Their sizes are: 0.5' x 1.5' for NGC 7332, which is much smaller than what is stated in the catalogue (1.1' x 4.1'!), and 0.5' x 2.3' for NGC 7339. The photos I've seen make me certain that I'm right by the size estimation, because on these the galaxy pair looks quite the same by size.

Nearly round, faint, mid-size planetary. The centre is fairly brighter, dark patch can be detected running from the East. To the South I can see a star that looks a bit as if it is surrounded by some sort of fuzziness. The planetary does not react well to the use of UHC and O-III filters. Located in a sparsely populated environment. SQM reading: 21.07 m/arcsec², 4°C, humid air.

Large but faint galaxy in the constellation of Pegasus. It is described as a spiral galaxy in the catalogues, however this is not detectable visually: it looks like an elliptic galaxy elongated in the NW-SE direction, with a totally homogeneous surface and a very tiny core that only slightly outshines the galaxy surface. I estimate its brightness to 13 magnitudes, with a size of about 1'x2.5'.

A rather small open cluster that separates nicely from its background. It has a definite "V" shape pointing to the WSW. To find it you need to star hop from the M52 cluster by using some faint stars - an uneasy voyage. As it has only a few brighter members, perhaps it's an easy to miss object with smaller scopes.

This 12m faint face-on galaxy of 1' diametre resembles a globular cluster that cannot be resolved at all. Its core brightens slightly, but apart from this it shows no details at all. At about 7-8' to the East, a 9.7 magnitude star is shining in the FoV. This galaxy is also catalogued in Arp's Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies with number 212. SQM reading: 21.03 m/arcsec^2.

Faint but still very spectacular spiral galaxy with an estimated brightness of about 12.3m. As I almost never read or view pictures of the objects I want to observe (so the photos in my memory will not change the picture I really see with my own eyes), because of its very asymmetrical shape I first thought that it must be an irregular galaxy, similar to the objects in Halton Arp's compilation of peculiar galaxies. Even its core area seemed to almost fall out of the galaxy itself. However, later on by examining astrophotographs it turned out that what I believed to be its core is in fact a bright foreground star and the real galactic core is in fact located in the brighter little densities near this "fake core". At smaller magnification levels (67x) the shape of the galaxy is easier to see, however by increasing the magnification, the sofar homogeneous arms start to show many details, especially with averted vision near the core. I measured its size as 4.5'x1'.

The planetary, also known as Blue snowball nebula looks planet-like even on powers as small as 45x, with a charming cyan colour. I think this is the planetary, that looks nice even is a theatre-binocular. Naturally, a filter is unneccessary to view it, however I've found that by using a UHC filter its size expands, especially to the Northeast, where a dark blue thin arc shows up. Finding this planetary is not hard at all, but it's a bit tricky, because the viewfinder displays it just like a bright star which you are unable to find on your maps. It has a perfect circular shape of a diametre of 0.6', with a brightness of about 8m.

I've sketched this fantastic trio of galaxies during the Meteor Star Party 2009 in Tarján, Hungary. The two larger ones are the face-on NGC 7769 and the edge-on 7771, both with softly brightening cores. Next to 7771 a small fuzzy object is visible, which surprises me, since my printed star map (TriAtlas B, with a limiting magnitude of about 12) shows no other objects than the two large galaxies at this area of sky. But as I can clearly make out this bright diffuse spot, I place it on the sketch and can't wait to find out what I really saw. It turns out to be the NGC 7770, another faint galaxy of 13.6m. This value I find a bit misleading, because visually its surface is not this much fainter than its two larger companion galaxies. This discovery makes me really happy, just like when I rediscovered NGC 5981 of the Draco Trio. SQM reading: 20.91 m/arcsec^2.

This is a special galaxy, being totally edge-on, although this can be seen only on long-exposition photographs. Visually it rather looks like a smaller galaxy laying in a 45 degree angle. What I see however, is only the core of the galaxy and its nearest vicinity. This core is cut into two halves by the dark dust path of the galactic plane, which can only hardly be seen visually, but it is not impossible by using extreme large magnifications. For me it stayed hidden even with 250x, although conditions were not favourable for galaxy hunting. I estimate its average surface brightness to 13m, and its size 1x2.5', but it's obvious that the whole galaxy is much larger than this.

NGC 7062 is a small but rich open cluster. At low power it appears as a nice, silver colored round spot. Contains a few bright and plenty (at least 20) of fainter stars. Very spectacular, well separated cluster, unfortunately the strong dew makes the observation of this object difficult.

Faint but instantly visible, almond-shaped galaxy. Doesn't reveal details, has a perfectly regular shape. Its core is not brighter than the rest of the surface. It doesn't grow with averted vision, however it displays a contour with much higher contrast when using this observing technique. Located in an interesting stellar environment. The star located to its West is a faint 14.8m one.

Somewhat unimportant open cluster with 2 very bright stars in the middle, and a dozen of fainter companions around and in between. Averted vision doesn't reveal more members.

Interesting, gem-shaped tiny open cluster. Has many colourful stars, difficult to locate due to the high number of nearby faint stars. Looks rather asterism-like.

Elongated to the WSW-ENE direction, this is a surprisingly small galaxy - at least I've expected a much larger object based on my map. Its surface brightness is however way higher than expected. It's core is not visibly brighter than the rest, but its WSW side is a bit brighter and this side of the galaxy is also better defined, the ENE side disappears in the sky background gradually. Is this phenomena perhaps a result of a spiral structure?To the East of the core, outside of its body, a tiny (foreground) star is very apparent.

Very faint and small galaxy. Some details are revealed by averted vision. With direct vision its simply a diffuse, tiny spot. In the W-E direction I observe a flat body, perhaps this is the central region of the galaxy. On this sits on the NW-SE direction a hat-shaped feature, similar to that of a mushroom. To the S of the fuzzy object a very faint, small, fuzzy spot appears time-by-time, is this perhaps the star-forming region of a spiral arm?

Surprisingly easy to see, as a tiny, fuzzy little spot. Slightly elongated to the W-E direction, but it's almost disk-shaped. It displays a very sharp edge which makes the looks spectacular. This edge is best visible with averted vision. Completely homogeneous.

Very tiny galaxy, yet instantly visible at 71x as defocused star. By increasing the magnification a very spectacular structure appears: looks like it grows some tentacles, of which the Southern one is the most apparent.

Very faint planetary, its edge is very hard to define. It's perfectly spherical, but this shape is obvious mostly with averted vision only. Its Western side looks brighter and almost invisibly but I do detect a slightly darker band in the middle of the surface in the N-S direction, which touches the Northern edge of the planetary nebula. The object is huge, but it is still very difficult to find due to its faint surface brightness.

Very faint galaxy, I've been searching for a long time until finally I was able to clearly identify it. Once found, it's no longer hard to track, despite it's really really faint. A bit elliptic with an elongation of NE-SW. Sometimes, especially with averted vision it looks rather like an irregular galaxy. Difficult object!

Quite faint and tiny galaxy, difficult to observe. With an elongation of W-E, it's almost perfectly edge on, very thin object. I suspect two details time to time: a very thin band of dust on the long axis and it seems like there's a faint central bulge on the Southern side.

Elongated to the N-S, with a shape of an eye. Faint, but it is obviously visible even at small magnifications like 71x. Smooth surface, no stellar core or any detail worth mentioning, except the faint star to the SW of the galaxy that sometimes seem to be on the surface of the object.

At 71x it appears with direct vision in the FoV as an extremely faint galaxy. I tried to make the view better by increasing the magnification to 250x to make the bright sky background fainter, but it just made the object disappear completely. I went back to 167x, that gives me the best views. It is so faint that I need to use averted vision all the time. Highly elongated to the NE-SW. It must be a really interesting object on a darker, less foggy sky.

Very tiny and very faint elliptic galaxy. At 71x it is already visible as a fuzzy little spot, but it is necessary to increase the magnification for better looks. Interesting, but with my 6mm TMB Planetary II eyepiece it disappears whereas with my 6mm Synta GoldLine eyepiece it appears nicely, which is weird as usually the Planetary EP gives a much better view, but now the GoldLine wins easily. This is a fine example why one needs more eyepieces of the same focal length.