3 Messiers checked of my 2016 list
From my balcony, I only have good visibility North and East. That limits what I can see form home, but the seasons bring enough diversity to keep my interest. I can get a peek through my roof and the house next door and I found Cheretan in Leo with my 33mm. I tried to spot the Leo triplet to get an idea of how good the skies where. I could see absolutely nothing, and knew that Mag 9+ objects were out of reach.
Hercules is in a good spot nowadays, So I decided to check off a few brighter m
There wouldn't be any telescope to show a faint galasy as bright as M92 you saw, unfortunately.
There're two factors deciding the brightness of faint fuzzies like galaxes or nebula: Contrast and exit pupil.
Constrast is totally depended on the sky darkness, the darker the sky, the more visible these faint fussies. More or less magnification will not change constrast of extended DSO, the sky will dim or brighten exactly the same amount as DSO.
Exit pupil depends on the focal leng