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I've been using my little 80mm diameter 500mm focal length short tube refractor for over 20 years, despite owning much bigger telescopes - for a variety of roles such as
a travel telescope, and
as something that gives nice widefield views, and
as a quick grab and go telescope that I can use as quickly as I take it out of the house.
All the 600 or so deep sky objects listed in Tirion's Bright Star Atlas can be seen with it, though you'd need dark skies for the galaxies.
I mainly use 1.25" eyepieces with it, and my favourite is an old 16mm Widescan with 82 degree field, though I also have used 20mm and 25mm wide angle eyepieces. The other day I was using my 2" wideangle eyepieces in it (20mm, 25mm, 26mm and 30mm) for amusement, though they make it heavier.
You might want to try using a narrow band filter on your eyepiece to bring out nebula better, or putting the filter between the eyepiece and your eye and either tilting it up and down, or moving it side to side to spot the small planetary nebulas.
If your telescope is an achromat, you should be able to easily take it to between 100X to 125X when looking at the moon and planets, though you may need a yellow/green filter or fringe-killer filter to sharpen things up a bit.
My refractor has ED glass and I was looking at Jupiter at 200X with it the other night - which was a bit of over magnification, with not much contrast between the bands - but doing a lot of staring eventually showed quite a bit of detail. About 160X is really all mine is good for (it's not an expensive ED telescope).
I recollect many years ago at a club viewing night where I just took my 80mm for quick looks at the sky, as I was mainly there for chatting. Other members had their big telescopes out, and a husband and wife new members were wandering among the telescopes looking at objects being shown to them. Eventually, toward the end of the night, they made their way to my little telescope, where I showed them the M6 and M7 open clusters in Scorpius and a few other bright objects. The husband looked around to make sure no one was within hearing range and said to me,
"You know what?"
"What?"
"We've been here looking through all these telescopes, and the best views we've had all night have been through your telescope."
So, keep in mind, you don't have a limited or inferior telescope. I bought mine after getting an 8" one, and have used it nearly as often as my 8" and 14.5" telescopes.
Regards,
Renato
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