a view of a fuzzy

While reading up on stellar magnitude, I noted the "image" of Messier 104 in the Night Sky Session 5 article at The Millstone. I thought the image provided by Pat Browne very appropriate—a very low contrast view with a few "bright" points (stars) and then this amorphous soft elongated dim tenuous thing in the centre. That is often very similar to what we see in the eyepiece when chasing down faint fuzzies... Exciting, hair-rising stuff for astronomers!