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As pointed out above, you must first have good polar alignment. Once you have done this, you can move onto the circles.
Pick a star that you know (Sirius, Canopus etc) and look up its RA and Dec values in a star atlas or sky software. Center the star in the eyepiece. Adjust the dec circle so that it reads the same as the star's dec. This may be correct anyway and is a one-off adjustment. Next move the RA circle so that it reads the same as the star's RA. This has to be reset from night to night, or even during the same night if you are planning a really long session. (The reason for this is that stars transit every 23hr56min and we use 24 hour solar time, so the 4min/day needs to be taken care of). Once you have set your circles for the night, just look up the coordinates of whatever object you want, then move the scope so that the circles are set to these coordinates. I suggest you practice finding some easy (naked eye) objects first so that you get a feel for how close you can get.
Geoff
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