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.

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.

The gigantic, shiny NGC 4631 (also known as the Whale galaxy) and its smaller and much fainter companion, the NGC 4656 (or Hockeystick galaxy) fit perfectly well in an eyepiece with at least 1 degrees of FoV, a very spectacular double. The 4631 is about 10m bright and just about to jump right out of the eyepiece, while the latter is much smaller with a brightness of about 11m only - estimated by me. Both galaxies are heavily distorted because of gravitational tidal forces between the two, not to mention that there's a tiny faint third companion very near NGC 4631 with the identifier NGC 4627 with a brightness of 13m. This galaxy remained hidden to me at this observing session and I could not make out the real hockey stick shape of NGC 4656 out either, possibly the bad transparency and seeing was not really helping me in this. The pair NGC 4631 and 4627 is also listed in Halton Arp's catalogue with number 281.

A very bright globular cluster with a very high number of separated star members. It's core brightens up very quickly. An interesting feature is a small bright stripe, built up by stars that cannot be separated with the eye. The background is grainy even far away from the core, and it is obvious that many of the bright field stars belong to the cluster gravitationally.

A large edge-on spiral with intermediate brightness, highly elongated in the NNE-SSW directions near the famous double, Cor Caroli. It does not show much details like arms or dense spots, however its NNE side looks a little bit brighter and wider, which makes the entire galaxy look a bit asymmetrical. I estimate its average brightness at 12 magnitudes maximum, with an apparent size of 13' x 2'.

Bright but tiny galaxy of 10 magnitudes. Nearby you can find a similar but fainter object, NGC 5033. In a FoV of 1 degree, both galaxies can be seen together, although according to their small apparent size, at such a magnification level they look really insignificant. The NGC 5005 sits at the end of a lane of stars, has a quickly brightening core that does not end up in a star-like nucleus.

Only about 40' away from NGC 5005, you can find this small, faint galaxy. This one is the fainter of the two, less spectacular with a slightly brightening core. It is in fact a very spectacular spiral, but visually it's more like a simple elliptical galaxy. At its Northern end you can detect a faint star of 13.9m, which appears (especially with averted vision) to twinkle on the surface of the galaxy. It's brightness is measured at 11m.

Fantastic spectacular group of galaxies. I can catch 4 of 5 group members. NGC 5353 and 5354 are showing star-like core, NGC 5350 does not show such a feature, although this is clearly the largest of all. NGC 5355 is the faintest, it's so dim that it's hard to detect its exact shape and position angle (PA). Hickson designations are: 68a = NGC 5353 (11m), 68b = NGC 5354 (11.4m), 68c = NGC 5350 (11.3m), 68d = NGC 5355 (13.1m), 68e = NGC 5358 (13.6m). Unfortunately I was unable to detect the last one of the quintet, but it should be visible on a better night.