Polar alignment

[speach (Simon)]

I've just watched a video about the making of piers and common faults. In it, it was stated that the pier need not be level because once the mount was aligned whatever the angle of the pier from the perpendicular the tracking would be unaffected. Is this true?

[Kunama]

As long as you are able to get the mounts axis pointed to the SCP and the counterweights do not hit the pier, it can be on any angle you like.
However it is easier to polar align if the pier top is level, then you can make corrections in one plane at a time during aligning.
If the pier top is inclined and your alignment procedure tells you that you need to turn the mount counterclockwise then that movement will also affect the elevation as you are rotating the mount on an inclined plane.....

That would be my guess anyway...

[speach (Simon)]

Thanks, thought it was something like that. Still going to get it level.