I too received my telescope with the tube the wrong way round. I was getting afraid the thing would fall over or something as it slewed to the ground! I didn't have a problem with the 24-hour time part, but as I live in the UK, I found out that I had to enter the date in US format, which is mm/dd/yy. In the UK we enter it as dd/mm/yy.

Even though I live in an urban area, I figured I should be able to see something when I first used my telescope last night. Ursa Major is almost right overhead London, yet I am either focusing too fast, or using the wrong eyepiece. Should I use a 25mm wide angle eyepiece to start off with? That is what I was using to try to see that constellation.

Thanks.