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Hi Glenn,
Santa was good with you, wasn't he!
I started out with a 50mm refractor some 25 years ago. Yet having four other scopes all larger than it, I am amazed at the ability of this little guy to show me stuff.
I too upgraded the eyepieces that came with it, and wow, what a difference as you found out.
With your scope, just about every type of object there is, is available to you. But the key is patience, and a dark sky will really help. As an example, I've been able to make out the Sombrero galaxy in a 30mm finder from a dark site, and it again in 50mm binos from my home in Sydney (though it was sitting in the darkest part of the sky for me at the time). Most galaxies that you can see will be faint.
Nebula wise, I've added a sketch I did of M42, the Great Orion nebula, done a couple of weeks ago with my 2" scope from my backyard in Sydney. The level of detail it revealed I never thought possible with such a small instrument. There are many other nebula & planetary nebulae that are attainable, but again, you will need patience and polish up your averted vision technique.
Globular clusters will mostly appear as fuzzy round blobs, as their constituent stars will be too faint for your scope to resolve to pin point stars. However, chase down 47Tuc & Omega Centauri, as your scope may just have enough guts to actually resolve these two giants.
Have a look in the Observation and Visual forum for the monthly Obs. Challenge. It is designed to give all levels of experience and scope sizes, even for naked eyes, targets to chase down. It isn't a competition, but a help on ideas on what to look out for.
70mm is a good scope to start out with. It may be small, but it is a great way to train your eyes to make the most of things.
If you can, even get to an astro club or some other star party. Take your scope along. Don't feel like your scope is no-good. On the contrary, folks there will feel impressed that you've made the effort to bring your gear and want to learn! They in turn will be only too happy to point out things, share tips, look through their gear, and may be even borrow an eyepiece or two.
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