Hello Pete,
Warm welcome to you and your family. It feels like yesterday I was asking the same questions you are...
Your main question is easy to answer: What to look at? I have been totally satisified with the mobile app, SkySafari:
https://skysafariastronomy.com/
In fact, I spent dozens of hours looking through this app months before I had a telescope at all. You will see everything there is to see. Thanks to your grounding in film, you will soon equate visual magnitude (how bright something appears) to what you can realisitically see with your gear and conditions. You will know where it is, and how large it is.
Newly informed with this info, you can go hunting. The rest I suggest, you will work out yourself along the way. Enjoy
Best regards, Andy.