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Will
Welcome to IIS
Your Atlas pro mount is made by Orion telescopes I assume , which is effectively a Chinese mount made by Synta. If it has a Synscan handcontroller Version 3 , 4 or 5 this handcontroller has a feature to polar align without a view of the SCP
All you need is 2 fairly bright alignment stars within 10 to 30 deg Azimuth and on the same side of the south meridian line and anywhere between 35deg and 65deg in Altitude. Drift alignment is fine but laborious, the Synscan method can be done in 5 or 10 minutes once you master it
You can either use an illuminated reticle eye piece to do your alignments or on a laptop using capture software (with zoom )
I have a procedure for this Synscan polar alignment routine and many IIS members just starting out have used it successfully
Before you can polar align you must ensure a few steps are done to get your telescope and mount ready like -
1/ Tripod set level NSEW on hard surface and aligned to True South ( not magnetic south )
2/ Mount head fitted set to “Home position”
3/ Telescope / mount fitted with counterweights all accessories and balanced in Dec and Ra then set back to home position
4/ Altitude of telescope / mount set to local altitude
Recommend you download a free copy of Stellarium on your laptop or desktop to learn the night sky. It can also be used with other software to remotely control your telescope later ( EQMOD )
I have procedures for all of the above plus the Synscan polar alignment routine if you wish to go down that path to polar align
Cheers and enjoy our hobby
Martin
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