A gigantic, greatly elongated galaxy, visible totally from its edge on. It covers an area of about 13' x 1.4' on the boundary of the constellations Draco and Boötes. It has a homogeneous colour, even its core is just slightly brighter than the rest of its outside territories. When looking at its shape, it's very clear why it is commonly referred to as the Splinter galaxy.

The trio, also known as the "Draco group" is just like an illustration for a book to show the variety of galaxies: it consists three totally different galaxies lined up on line from East to West. Some details about these galaxies westward: the huge NGC 5985 (11m) is a nearly face-on spiral galaxy. Plenty of its arms are visible even with direct vision! Its galactic core is not really bright. This is followed by the tiny NGC 5982 (11m) which is an elliptic galaxy with homogeneous surface and a very bright, star-like core. While drawing these, I've noticed that something just appears more to the West: it was the faint NGC 5981 (13.2m), another spiral galaxy, but with edge on. If I were just taking a small glimpse instead of taking the time to sketch this area, I'd have surely miss this gem. This is why sketching is wonderful: it is what makes observation complete!

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.

This globular cluster is located in the constellation Boötes. It's quite bright with large apparent size (I estimate a diametre of about 8'), however unfortunately it has a more spectacular neighbour, the M3 that draws attention away, although the two have similar size. About a dozen of its stars can be separated easily with direct vision, and the whole surface is very grainy with a lightly brightening core.

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.

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.

An extremely faint pair of galaxies in a sparsely populated starfield, therefore it's recommended to have some experience with starhopping. The brighter one is the NGC 5859, that is a small edge-on galaxy. Its core is brightening slowly. To the NW you may notice a small foggy star which turns out to be the core of another faint galaxy, the NGC 5857. It's much fainter than its companion, and features a star-like core. It nearly touches the outer regions of the NGC 5859. The faintest star of the sketch is catalogued at 15.21m, which is considered to be excellent in such a terrible atmospheric conditions.