I often recommend to beginning sky-watchers that they try looking at the night sky with a large pair of binoculars (look for large objective-lenses and not too much magnification) rather than a telescope.
The nebulae and larger Messier objects are beautiful and approachable with bright handheld optics.
A small bit of advice from me: consider the weight of the binoculars when buying them. They can be too heavy to hold for more than a minute - especially large ones made for astronomy. You will either want a tripod (which is inconvenient to carry around and set up), or you’d want the binoculars to be smaller in size.
For any practical viewing with binoculars you do need a good tripod - otherwise instead of stars you’ll see shaky lines. Unlike daytime viewing your eye/brain doesn’t eliminate small shakes, or maybe it’s just harder to stabilize binoculars when looking up.
The nebulae and larger Messier objects are beautiful and approachable with bright handheld optics.