Hey Tony,

Your description of the cores being small but fairly diffuse and faint is dead on. The stars around these two objects were pin point sharp but these two objects were fairly diffused. As for the swirls I'm not sure, but there was something very different about these two objects.

The biggest issue were my eyepieces. I'm still using the ones that came with my Celestron 1.25 inch kit as well as a 20MM Celestron Omni eyepiece. I did order my first Televue eyepieces the other day so I hope they improve my viewing.

If I get lucky again with very clear skys I'll see if I can spot them again and confirm.