Yeah, I’ve got SAM Console so that gives the position as to where Polaris should be in the reticle.Yes. Have you got one of the supporting apps?
Polaris is not actually dead centre on the celestial pole. Even viewed through the low magnification of the alignment scope, it will trace a small circle. To be correctly aligned, polaris needs to be on the right part of that circular gauge at the right time. If you don’t turn it on then it will have drifted by the time you use it.
However it will drift a bit anyway unless your mount is perfectly level and perfectly aligned, so it might be better to get polaris aligned and leave the mount turned off, then perform a final adjustment just before you start your imaging.
I know I found when I was out last, it would have been worth having the mount assembled, the camera in the right shooting mode etc ready to nip out late on. It took so long to set up, it was getting late before I started imaging.
do you do your alignment once you’ve got your camera on the tracker or beforehand? When I tried it on my old weaker tripod the alignment drifted so far out it was a pointless exercise. Set my new tripod up last night and it feels so much more solid so hopefully I’ll have more luck.