I am new to astronomy and have been enjoying myself a great deal.

I started by just trying to learn the constellations, and then
identifying some of the more prominent objects (i.e., planets).

Recently purchased a Celestron 114GT telescope, and have set it up and
aligned it per instructions. This has yielded my son and I some
excellent views of the moon, mars, saturn, etc. and I like the way it
will track objects.

Here's my problem - I see in the astronomy magazines numerous and
incredible photos of deep sky objects, generally taken by folks with
telescopes much larger and more powerful than mine.

Many things I read indicate that aperture may be more important than
magnification. However, I don't know what to expect when looking for
certain objects because nobody has given me any help with the scope
and I have no point of reference except the magazines.

For instance, I have been trying to locate M31 in Andromeda. I
certainly know where to look, but don't know what to look for. How
big should it look? Is it just star-sized, or should it be larger?
Am I just not in a dark enough location (we actually don't have much
light pollution where I live, but there are neighboring houses with
external lights)?

I know this sounds like a stupid question. However, expectation
levels were set pretty high by the scope mfr's literature, and I'm
afraid that I may be reaching the practical limitations of this scope.
If so, this may be very disappointing.