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John,
You still have to align to two stars with the auto align so all the two star alignment is eliminating is the leveling and finding north. The auto align does automatically pick bright stars though rather than you selecting which stars you want to align to. The theory with auto align picking bright stars is that it should be pretty obvious which one it's trying to align to. The problem with the sensor being off is that it is so far off the star that when you slew to it (and repeat it a second time) it assumes you've made a mistake and picked the wrong star because it's further off than it thinks it should be.
Sigma Octans is rather dim (something like mag 6.5) which is too dim for me to see from my backyard in the middle of Sydney. That's the main reason why I haven't done it. I have had the telescope at darker sites but I'm so eager to get going and make the most of my night I completely forget about calibrating the sensor.
Most basic star maps only show the three brighter stars in Octans which is why you're struggling to find it. Sigma Octans is in Autostar so if you find auto align doesn't work do a two star align and tell it to go to star SAO 258857 (shows up as Polaris Australis I think). Then you can see where it is and have a go at the calibration process.
Don't be scared of the two star alignment. Leveling the mount with a spirit level is something you should do anyway. To find true north just point the scope 12 degrees west of magnetic north. Have a copy of the monthly sky map from skymaps.com and you'll have no trouble identifying bright stars to align to.
Cheers,
Greg
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