[Wavytone]

Richard, I would suggest finding someone who knows and can teach you to align.

In altaz mode the AZEQ6 should do a 1-star or 2 star alignment well enough - but the key here is to:

a) level the tripod properly - any error will be translated to the same error in every GOTO thereafter.

b) enter the date, time and the site long and lat correctly. Stuff this up (eg DDMMYYY instead of MMDDYYY, or DDMMSS vs decimal degrees) and the consequences are not pretty.

In equatorial mode however you MUST get the polar alignment reasonably close - a few degrees at most. Typically I can align using bright stars and the dec circle to 1 degree, which is good enough to produce good GOTOs thereafter unless you are aiming at something within 10 degrees of the pole (unlikely as theres nothing interesting there anyway).

For this purpose:

1. Do this in daylight - align the dec circle accurately with the OTA in daylight, so it reads correctly and put a dob of silicone glue in place to make sure the damn circle can't rotate accidentally (the glue needs to be removable in case you need to rotate the dovetail 90 degrees - don't use superglue or epoxy).

Why ? because you will need the dec circle at step 5.

2. Make sure the finder is accurately aligned with the main scope. Mine is a bog standard skywatcher 8 x 50 and it does stay aligned well enough from one setup to the next, but its worth checking while assembling the scope. Why ? because you'll use the finder at step 5.

3. Use a clinometer app on a smartphone - calibrated - to level the tripod head better than 1 degree. Forget the stupid bubbles if you have one - they're unreadable in low light and uncalibrated which means if you rotated the tripod legs 60 degrees, it won't read the same as it did last time you set up. Something else the manufacturers don't think of.

4. Align the mount in altitude using a smartphone clinometer to set the altitude equal to your latitude, better than 1 degree. If you have levelled the tripod and use a regular observing site you'll find the setting should be pretty accurate each setup, ie no fiddling.

5. Align azimuth using a bright star due east/west and low down, near the horizon, by setting the scope o the declination of this star and adjusting azimuth to centre the star in the scope. I know very few here on IIS understand this, but it beats the crap out of drift aligning. Aligning using the finder crosshairs is good enough - you only need do get within a degree.

6. Put the scope precisely in the PARK position - ie pointing at declination -90 (the pole) and the dec axis vertically under - before switching on and commencing the alignment process. Use the clinometer to set the dec axis vertical.

7. Switch on and begin a 2-star alignment. If you miss step 5 the alignment process will flap up hopelessly, guaranteed. Be ready to kill the slew if its driving the scope below horizon or into the legs.

Lastly, its also possible your mount is faulty - the first one I received was - powered up pressing buttons looked OK, it slewed and the motors went zzzzz, but it could not perform an alignment. Bintel acknowledged the fault and swapped it.