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Frosty
Well done on the scope!
I'll second comments about using a phone while observing. The app you are using may have a night mode that makes the screen red, but from experience it is still usually way too bright and will kill your night vision.
Also how dark is your observing site and how is the light pollution? Light pollution can make those faints DSOs hard to see.
With the back issue, this can be a problem with a smaller dob. A simple solution is simply to lift the base up bu placing it on a milk crate. Staying as warm as possible will help also, if your back gets cold it will not enjoy bending over the eyepiece.
The limiting "theoretical" stellar magnitude limit for a typical 8" scope is actually around 14. This means that in a theoretical perfect viewing environment eg perfectly clear skies, no sky glow, no light pollution, perfect seeing (eg still atmosphere) and with optics in perfect condition, diffraction limited optics, optimal collimation etc you could THEORITICALLY be able to see a magnitude 14 star. Someone may correct me on this but the faintest star most people can see at a dark site is about mag 6 or 6.5, and a mag 14 is about 1500 times fainter. Practically even at a dark site you will be doing OK to see mag 12 stars. Of course a star is a point while most DSOs are extended, so a mag 12 DSO will have its light spread over a large area, making it's "surface brightness" much lower and therefore dimmer.
Hope this explanation helps. If I might suggest, maybe start off by locating some easier objects. At the moment obviously the moon is easy but Saturn and Mars are still easy in the west early in the evening. This will get you used to navigating the scope and finding things. Another good target for early evening is the Jewell Box cluster (NGC4755) in Crux, should be an easy get even in fairly light polluted skies.
Cheers
Malcolm
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