Hi,
Soaking all this up, thanks to all, and developing a technique just for moi.
I thought this was a good article for Synscan users.
http://stargazerslounge.com/archive/.../t-132029.html
I had often noticed that I would get repeated fails on 3-star alignments, but be successful on 1-star (of course I would though) and 2-star efforts. What was it telling me? Getting closer to the answer.
I have decided that a polar scope is not on order for the time being. I think at this stage it is something about crafty usage of the Alt-Az fine adjustments on the EQ5, on a 1-star alignment, which is then repeated a few times in different directions. The results will send me a message. This is what you are really doing when setting the scope up with a compass etc.
Cheers