diomedes It is not important where the OTA is precisely pointed to when doing ASIAIR polar alignment. The objective of Polar Alignment is to get your polar axis pointed to the NCP (or SCP), not to get your OTA pointed at the pole.
Don't worry about the index mark of your mount. It is likely to not be precise anyway, and depends on many other factors, like if your mount is on level ground.
The initial plate solve and the first plate solve after the 60 degree rotation lets ASIAIR figure out the center of rotation of your polar axis. This is why establishing precisely 60 degree is not important (ASIAIR can figure out from the plates how much the mount has rotated). And that is also why the starting angle is also not important.
After those two points to establish the center of rotation, the subsequent plate solves direct you to move that center of rotation towards where the NCP (or SCP) is located at on the plate. When the center of rotation of your polar axis coincides with the NCP (or SCP), you are polar aligned. ASIAIR probably uses a moderately bright star as reference (it does not have to be Polaris, since that won't work in the Southern hemisphere) and will direct you to move that star's location with the altitude and azimuth bolts. (I have not seen the ASIAIR code, but that would be what I would do.)
If the polar region is close to the horizon, ASIAIR will also have to compensate for atmospheric refraction.
All that is needed by ASIAIR is to make sure the starting location and the ending location (after 60 degree rotation) are both within 30 degrees of the pole. If you stay within that, the polar alignment plate solve database will succeed.
With my mount simulator (that can measure things accurately without involving a mechanical mount), I have found that the closer you are to the pole (note: to the pole, not to Polaris), the more accurate the ASIAIR polar alignment is. But you can be off by 5 degrees and still get good polar alignment. I myself use +89.5 degrees DEC when I start polar alignment since I try to avoid 90.0000 degrees like the plague.
(See here for my mount simulator: http://www.w7ay.net/site/Applications/MountSim/)
I also start the ASIAIR polar alignment with the OTA position at 60 degrees east of top dead center (i.e., OTA tilted on the east of the pier). After the 60 degree slew, the OTA is close to directly above the polar axis, making it easy to access the altitude and azimuth bolts of my RainbowAstro mount (very compact mount with tight spaces to access the alt and az bolts).
Some mounts (like mine) knows the absolute location of the axes at all times, so I do not need to do any star alignment before I perform the polar alignment.
Some mounts only knows relative location of the axes (relative to when you apply power to your mount), and for those mounts, you need to do at least an approximate star alignment to determine its absolute location (by using local time, UTC offset, longitude and latitude; so those values need to be accurate too). The star alignment need not be accurate, but should be within a degree or so.
Some mounts won't even establish communications with the controlling computer (in this case, the ASIAIR) until you have done at least a fake alignment. I suspect your is one of those.
With imprecise star alignment, each GOTO even after polar alignment will not be perfectly spot on. Don't worry about it. Just do a couple of plate solves to zero in to your target.
Back many years ago, I used to align my Takahashi EM-11 mount by starting with it pointed to zenith (using a spirit level to measure when the OTA is pointed at zenith). That position is then sync'ed with the local Sidereal Time, after which, the mount knows where it is pointed when it is slewed to other locations since RA = Local Sidereal Time - Hour Angle, and Declination of the Zenith is derived from the latitude. This method has unfortunately become a lost art after the newer mounts started to use star alignment instead.
Chen
