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Alas Eric as others have said, galaxies can be very faint. As Malcolm points out, keep going back and you will see more. Also it pays to understand the physiology of the eye. When you view something faint, the photoreceptor cells on your retina that you need to use are the very sensitive night vision rod cells, not the day vision cone cells. The fovea, which is the part of your retina that you use when you look directly at something has no rod cells at all, so if you look straight at many deep sky objects, you won't see much at all. Get it in the middle of your eyepiece and look to a bit one side of the galaxy and you will be amazed how much more you will see. The temptation is to look straight at it, but this will get rid of just about everything. The other thing to bear in mind is that the rod cells do not encode colour like the cone cells do. So most DSOs will appear in shades of grey, but still very beautiful as you learn to tease out the detail.
Collimation may make a bit of a difference. I used to use a laser only, but when I invested in a cheshire eyepiece as well, I found I could place the secondary with much greater accuracy. But the main issue will be the low surface brightness - averted vision and repeated observation will help. And also the end of La Nina. This year has been the pits for galaxies down here as there is so much moisture in the air. With dark skies and a 16" scope, M104 is usually stunning from my backyard, but it's been quite ordinary all year. I really haven't bothered with galaxy obs much at all. Even bright ones just look like they're in a sea of muck.
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