Selecting a few  common favourites from the Synscan tour selections, it was off to M6 then the colourful double Alberio. Both fell perfectly in the centre of the 22mm eyepiece. Later I was off to M7 for a check and then across to NGC104 (47 Tuc) globular cluster. I left it for 30 minutes and came back to the eyepiece to find this magnificent cluster still centred nicely in the eyepiece. I decided to then try the lovely Pavo globular cluster (NGC6752) and it too fell nicely into the centre of the FOV. Off to one of the wandering worlds, Uranus this time. It wasn't centred but I could see it within the field of the eyepiece. As the clouds started building up, I quickly shot over to M8 now a bit low in the west but centred in the view.
 

Another great advantage of mounting your optical tube or tubes on this type of mount is that you can use a CCD camera fitted at the back of your telescope and point overhead without the worry of it banging into the base like of conventional old fork alt-az configurations like Celestron CPC and Meade etc...). Setup is easy just like the "go to" collapsible Sky-Watcher Newtonians. Simply set the mount level and facing north, power up and select ALT-AZ mode from the start up menu in the hand controller. After setting your location, time, date and Daylight savings (yes/no) options as usual, the user is presented with one or two star alignment options. I always prefer 2 stars (recommended). You must manually slew the mount to the first star chosen from the star selection options setting up as follows:

1) With the control panel of mount facing to you, the telescope should be installed on your right hand side.
2) When the telescope is levelled (ALT= 0 degree), the telescope should point forward with the control panel of the mount still facing to you.
3) To align the first (or the brightest) alignment star in AZ mode, always rotate the mount in azimuth (the RA axis) first to the right in the direction of the alignment star and then rotate the altitude (declination axis) upwards to point to the star. The telescope should not rotate or flip beyond 90 degrees overhead (zenith) to point to the first star otherwise it will cause problems when slewing to the second alignment star.

Once the first star is centred, and then selecting the 2nd alignment star, the mount will slew itself to or very near to that star (close enough as seen in the finder scope). Once you do a manual centre in the finder scope cross hairs and then at the eyepiece, simply press enter and you're ready to tour the night sky.

When objects are not perfectly centred, the ALT-AZ mode also allows the user to re-centre on the target after manual re-centring is done with direction keys by simply holding down the ESC key for improved accuracy (just like in equatorial mode use). The extra mounting head puck provided with the unit for side by side telescope use has fine altitude adjust lever screws for helping with on-axis alignment with the main scope. And of course when it comes to sharing the load between a heavier primary scope with a much lighter smaller one on the opposite side, one can simply extend the declination shaft in or out to suit.

**Latest testing reveals some inaccuracies in selected target centring using ALT-AZ configuration after doing a 2 star alignment but we have reported this and future firmware updates for the SynScan controller will no doubt sort the issue.

***UPDATE 12th December 2012 - As anticipated, feedback and quick development response has let to the required updates. See links at the bottom of this article.