I have mentioned this before but I just wanted to provide an example of why this might be a method for those of you with polar scopes to try.
Back in 2005 I carefully drift aligned my NJP mount with Starfire and then made a drawing and memorised the position of the cross hairs in relation to the other field stars in teh polar scope. I have since adjusted for precession (approx)
On Thursday night I positioned the cross hairs to the SCP position I know in the star field, as usual. I hadn't tested the accuracy of this polar alignment method for a while.. so I put a guide star on the cross hairs at 600mm FL and went inside for dinner (45min?), when I returned I was delighted to see the guide star had only drifted about 2 pixels and in RA only...not bad for just eyeballing through a polar scope.
Who needs Polar Align max etc?? If you have a polar scope (all it needs is cross hairs, other circles and Polaris positions etc can be ignored) I recommend you take the time to get familiar with your polar scope field, then in the future and provided you can see the SCP, you can be very accurately aligned in minutes - very useful for those who are portable
Cheers
Mike