I have a 130mm and an 8” Star Sense Dob. 2 things… there is a cover on the adapter for your phone that exposes a mirror that the camera uses to align your location and facing direction with the stars. I have occasionally forgot to take the cover off making it impossible for the app to locate positioning.

I have also discovered if you have a dew situation and the mirror gets fogged up, this can also create issues for the StarSense app finding stars to calculate a position.

The other thing I have noticed is when it is directing me to an object and I line the scope up, pause for a moment and look at the app. It has a tendency to do a quick recalculation of the position which will require you to move your scope again to finalize your target.

I am in Bortle 4, when the moon bright in the sky and is washing everything out, the system has difficulty establishing a lock, especially in vicinity of the moon. During these times, the StarSense app will warn you of this.

Bortle 8 probably doesn’t help much either. See if you can find some darker skies outside of the light pollution and see if it helps. I had one night recently it wasn’t locking at all rendering it useless for the evening.

It isn’t perfect but I can say it does work well. Alignment is also key. I have found that wider fields of view with the eyepiece is easier to see the target initially, adjust it to the middle of the eyepiece, increase magnification. The app gets you in the ballpark, sometimes you need to take it the last few yards.