[Solanum]

I've used my 'new' 8SE a few times now and I'm starting to really miss my Argo Navis! It'd be good pick the brains of those of you with experience with this scope.... Apologies for the length of my rambling.

1) Alignment and tracking are not spot on, OK, but not close to the AN standard. Unfortunately, there is no three star alignment mode.... Is this likely to be due to inaccuracies in positional information?

I'm in Adelaide, so am picking 'Adelaide' from the menu, but presumably this is the CBD location and I'm about 10 km away, also the 9.5 timezone can't be set, so I add on half an hour and use 10, is that a problem?

I'm starting to think that a GPS would make the set-up a lot easier/quicker, does it help improve tracking/reduce set-up time in practice? If so, how does the StarGPS compare with the Celestron SkySync?

2) The ease of accessing common objects from the database is no where near close to that of the AN and the 'sky tour' is utterly rubbish compared with the AN, it is unbelievably N hemisphere heavy, with little other than Omega Centauri in our sky. More importantly, not even objects like Eta Carina are in the database, which means NGC numbers etc. have to be entered. That means more preparation before I head out....

I appreciate there isn't much that can be done about this (I assume?), so is it worth getting a bluetooth/wifi accessory to easily control from a smartphone/tablet? Or do people find the bright screen/faffing around no quicker...?

3) Any other tips to get the best (visual) use out of this scope/mount, particularly in minimising non-observing time?

Thanks!!!