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Octans can be a challenge to find if you have never seen them before or live in the city as there only 5-6th mag stars.
I did find them in Strikers EQ6 polar scope when I set it up and he's right bang in the middle of Brisbane and can't see the Magellan clouds or most of the milky way.
Once you have used them a few times it becomes easier to locate them , but I wouldn't want to do it in Brisbane again.
You need to use a compass first and know the deviation for you area ( look on the web) and adjust the RA axis to point to that deviation position for true south.
Magnetic south from a compass is not true south.
Then you will need to set the altitude of the RA to your latitude. Best done using an adjustable bubble level on the tube as some latitude scales on scope mounts are not very accurate or the scale was not put on with care.
mine was out by 4degs.
Also the same can be said about the polar scopes.
My EQ6 polar scope was initially out by the width of the four main Octans stars.
It is able to be collimated like a finder scope , but be aware of the Chinese polar scopes and check them with a drift alignment .
If you can get these steps pretty accurate they will usually be in the field of view and just a matter of rotating the polar scope to the correct orintation.
Even if drift aligning these initial steps done accuratly will shorten the driftprocedure.
This is good enough for short wide field imaging or planetary imaging and visual use but then you need to fine tune it with a drift alignment for longer exposures and higher power imaging.
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This can be done the old fashion tedious way with an illuminated eyepiece or better still get a copy of K3CCD tools and use the polar alignment tool included .
You will require some form of CCD camera like a cheap web cam (ToUcam)
This later method is so much quicker and easier and less frustrating.
With practice either way you will get it down to sub 15minutes or the later 5.
Mark
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