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Yeah Baz, I'd have to second/third(?) Mick's comment. As for the Nextsar11, I had one on order but cancelled when it became the nextmonth`11.
But to get back to your problem; Mate SCP wise all I can see is a &#@!@ pine tree to my south, so I have had to polar align without the benefit/handicap of knowing if the OTA is parallel perpendicular or anything else. Drift align is the way to go Baz, 5 hours at most not 5 years. I wouldn't trust gps align as far as I could kick it either. But Goto, that is
another thing.
You might not need to now, but you could do a 'goto the moon', or a bright object such as Sirius, Jupiter etc. with the correct site and date time details set. Physically move the wedge till you have the moon centered and you will be roughly close to polar aligned because the scope will have moved the OTA (relative to the mount) to where it thinks the object is, based on being already polar aligned. From that point you can just drift align. It sounds like you are ready to just drif align anyway so just forget about the SCP and drift align and get on with enjoying your observing sessions
You can forget all about the SCP altogether unless you want to look at it for some reason or other. When you have drift aligned, and tracking well you can be happy that the OTA is at least roughly parallel even if you can't measure it.
Actually, the OTA being parallel to the polar axis or not affects goto accuracy, not polar alignment. Polar alignment is for the polar axis not the orthogonality of the OTA with the fork. I think that might have been a bit of a red herring that has cost you a significant part of your 5 years.
Just to reiterate, no matter what type of mount you have, no matter how much it costs brand new, no matter how many bells and whistles it has, accurate polar alignment can only be achieved by drift measurement
cheers,
Doug
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