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Dave,
Trying to polar align using a polar scope is pain in the butt and I found I get much better results from using the Synscan polar alignment routine
1/ Using the polar scope your either bent over or on your knees squinting into the scope trying to align this tiny asterism and keep your head still ( a neck breaker )
2/ The south celestial pole for most people is between 30 degrees and 40 degrees ( quite low in the night sky ) so accuracy is dependent on atmospheric seeing conditions and the quality of your eye sight
3/ I have no line of sight to the SCP at one of my locations , the other location I have line of sight but still choose the Synscan PA routine. The more you do it the better you get at it ( like everything in this hobby )
3/ With Synscan you choose you polar star and alignment stars ( usually higher in Altitude ) and at a comfortable viewing position either with a refractor or newt reflector
4/ You could spend money and buy a Pole Master to replace your polar scope connected to a laptop but why not use the free program in your Synscan hand controller using a centering eye piece which provides enough accuracy
5/ I progressed 3 years ago from using a centering eye piece ( which was great for a year ) to using my imaging DSLR on the telescope connected to my imaging program BYEOS and sitting at my outdoor workstation. I can polar align using Synscan and BYEOS to under an arc minute within 10 minutes
The Synscan routine has not let me down in nearly 4 years of Astronomy. In some cases the accuracy has been so tight I can take a 90 sec exposure with pin point stars and I image at 1000mm focal length with 200mm of aperture (definitely not widefield !! )
Of course I use PHD2 guiding when doing long exposure Astrophotography
Hope the above answers your question
Cheers
Martin
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