[vespine]

I got out last night for the 1st time with my new 8x56 Tasco nockies and have to say was pretty impressed. I'm starting to get the hang of a few of the constellations apart from crux and Orion (which I've known for a long time). Having a star chart AND a planisphere helps. Along with the binocs I have a 60mm crapomatic refractor which is quite terrible but (arguably) better then nothing
So I still can't quite get my head around finding the DSOs, I'm sure I have seen a couple around carina but I'm not quite at the stage where I'm trying to work out which one and what it's called and stuff.
After a while I decided to look around a little more past the big bright clump in the top of the sky and started examining my star chart for something else to find and saw what looked like a big cluster of galaxies near the head of Leo. I tried scanning with the binocs and the scope but by that stage the moon started getting higher in the sky and everything started dewing up a little so I didn't manage to find anything there.
Are galaxies generally very hard to find? What should I be looking for? Do you generally just see a smudge or can you make out a "border" to some? Do I have ANY hope in a 60mm crapo-fractor? I AM getting quite good at spotting and tracking on the wobblemount
Do you have to have great seeing conditions or can you see "brighter" galaxies on nights like last night? On my chart (the one in astronomy 2006) there are heaps and you can't tell the magnitude, (I don't think) does someone have a list of the "brighter galaxies" that are easiest/er to find in the sky at this time of year?
Also what magnification would people start with trying to find galaxies? I think I was mostly using 56x.