Hello and welcome to this great forum. EQ (equatorial) mounts are not as straight forward for visual use as an ALt AZ or fork mount, but once you get the idea then the tracking is much better. To re-iterate what has said before, it can be a pain in the neck (or knees). My favourite addition to my astronomy night out apart from a red torch is a pair of 15 dollar knee pads from Bunnings - certainly makes it more comfortable to kneel down and look up at the eye piece when in those awkward positions. When it's high you could rotate the tube also. I love my EQ mounts, they are out more times than my old fork mount nowadays.
What is mentioned earlier about polar alignment is true though, but unless you want to take piccies straight away don't let it put you off.
Use the usual rigmarole for setting up i.e point south with a tiny adjustment for Brissie magnetic variation and the altitude to your latitude and then you are away.
Or if you are like me - just get the bloody thing out at every opportunity and find something in the sky and go "awww"
re. the above, because scopes have a smaller view I found really useful the Stellarium as mentioned before but also a pair of cheap binoculars- to scan the sky.
I would find the area of interest then scan with binos till I found the bright object then point the scope that way.
Another way is finding the thing of interest in binos/ finderscope then taping a cheap laser pointer to the scope in it's optical axis so you know when you point the laser, the scope is there. You can buy laser pointer mounts as well but tape is cheaper!
Above all, don't get mired by the techno stuff, as at the end of the day we are all in it to be gobsmacked by the beauty of the heavens. So anyway you can see that is alright!
such a long post as at the moment the beauty of the heavens is swamped by the majesty of the rain!!
Graham in gumboots
