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Baz here is my 2 cents worth it will be one approach of many I expect. But if you are having trouble with polar align try this.
The next time you get a look at the sky try photographing the pole with the scope pointing at the pole. (At least to where you think the pole is)…with the drive motors turned off….so as the show where they move.
Take a time exposure (you may need 10 minutes a little less or more to show the trails clearly) and note that the stars trail to start to form circles, well a very small section of a circle) ...move/adjust the wedge only not the scope so as to get the center of the star trails in the middle of your field of view in the photo you have taken.
Take another shot and see if you have centered the star trail circles.
You will quickly tell if you are getting closer or moving off centre.
This can take many exposures to get circle the stars make it right in the centre... but if your scope is parallel to the RA axis it means that when the scope shows you are pointing at the centre of the star trail circles your RA must be pointing at the pole...and aligned
When you are confident the time exposure shows the star circle centre in the middle of the picture add a Barlow to up the mag and do another exposure to see if the star circle is centered. Again you may need to do a few.
Up the magnification with whatever you have... two Barlows stuck in each other, (I stick two 3x and a 2x Barlow in line to get an 8x greater mag. Depends what you have even EP projection with your smallest workable Ep.
This should get you very close to polar aligned. You can further adjust, hopefully only minor adjustment with the polar align drift method. I suggest my time exposure system because it will at least get you very close..I manage 200 second runs at 750 fl on a poor mount using this system alone.
With a fork mount if you rotate it pointing at an object you should be able to make sure the RA and the scope are pointing at the same thing.. so I feel the suggested method should work for you.
I do it with an eq mount and find it works well and think it would even work better on a fork mount. That’s not the only way but starting out it may get you close faster than drift align.
When you have finished this turn it all on and take a photo of something like Orion with the motors running so as to see if it was worth the effort. I think you can see the idea I don’t know of any one who uses it ..Seeker has or at least his Son has who said “it rocks”
I hope I have not missed the point and this may help.
Alex
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