My recommendations: a pair of 8x42 or 10x50 roof prism, BAK4 glass, multi-coated binoculars. Make sure they are capable of accepting a tripod adapter.

MORE power is MORE fun. The 15x70s with a tripod sends me sailing much deeper through the sky. When you get familiar with seeing "fuzzies" through them, you can play my favorite game.

Favorite binocular game: Get comfortable. I use a lawn chase and lean my tripod towards me on two legs. Then browse the sky until I find an interesting fuzzy, star, satellite, etc.... After taking special care to memorize the star patterns around the object (or note the time and place for a satellite), I go in to my favorite sky chart software and search until I locate the object and find out what it is and what it's called. Object names stick with me longer and my ability to relocate them is much greater.