Quote:
Originally Posted by bartman
... that tute still indicates to me that you need the scope to be in the "park" mode position..... ie pointing to Octans. I cant see Octans from my backyard, so my question still remains : can I pick a star ( for instance tonight canopus is at the right height- for me- at about 20:30 WST on the meridian due-ish south) which means moving dec and ra?
I think I might have thought of the answer, but I'll eagerly await a contradiction to the " read what it says in the tute" response    
Cause that would help...... 
Bartman
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Hi Bart
For polar alignment (to adjust the azimuth) it is usually done on a star pretty close to the junction where the celestial equator meets the meridian and particularly in our case we have to point Northwards since we are in the SH (so any reference to point to Octans would be from someone who is in the NH) - and to correct for the latitude we pick a star in the east or west about 20-30 degrees above the horizon and pretty close to DEC 0 ie close to the celestial equator
I do PA by the drift method (takes about 30mins) or by using Alignmaster and then cross-check by drift-aligning which takes even lesser time - ie if there is no drift after 10mins I'm good to go
BTW do you have Holden car plates that is an acronym of your name? Thought 'twas you I was behind in Midland
Cheers
Bill