Galaxies are very dim. You may need to increase the limiting magnitude by pressing the "]" multiple times. If that isn't enough, you may need to change the brightness settings of your monitor.
Planetary systems are defined in .SSC files that you put in the "extras" directory. Thomas Guilpain has provided an explanation of most of the available directives in English at
http://members.fortunecity.com/guilpain/Fichiers%20ssc_uk.htm
There also is a French version. For that and other downloads, visit his home page at
http://members.fortunecity.com/guilpain/
You can use the file solarsys.ssc which is in the "data" directory as an example. There are quite a few ssc downloads available, too. Use the forum's "search" function to find some of them.
I hope this helps a little.