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I think I have only ever found the SCP once, and then only for the exercise of finding it.
For AP I have always drift aligned but for visual I have used a couple of different techniques.
When I had my C8 on the CG5 GEM mount, I either used a compass to roughly polar align or I used Various asterisms to estimate where the SCP was. Then, after doing a 2 or 3 star align, the software could handle the errors well enough to point to right place and for visual. I wasn't concerned about field rotation.
Back when I had my 8" Newt on a Samson mount, I used to use a different technique:
I'd pick a known bright star near the horizon, set my scope to the Dec of that star and adjust the azimuth of the mount till the star was centred (and ignore the RA - it's not important until you you start to drift align).
If you don't know your latitude and need to adjust the latitude of the mount, pick a star near the zenith and again set the Dec for the star and adjust the latitude on the mount till it's centred.
I sometimes used this technique with the CG5 just to improve pointing if the rough compass method was a bit too rough.
Al.
Last edited by sheeny; 30-09-2017 at 12:01 PM.
Reason: afterthought
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