confused on polar alignment?

[redfox1971]

please tell me what im doing wroung:( i set my celestron cpc 800 up on the hd pro wedge faceing towards polaris i fit my canon 1000d into telescope and use apt software programe for live alignment, i start by selecting eq north then a 2 star align usually arcturus and procyon when succesful i then slew to polaris,i then press align key,polar align, select polaris then centre,then align mount so slews to polaris again and i centre with wedge adjustments till dead centre then finnished,what confusses me is a message with polar align that says"warning stars used for polar alignment should be away from the eastern horizon,western horizon,zenith,and poles,press undo to exit and choose anougher star or continue with current selection"am i right in thinking i am to pick a star to the south for polar alignment,why wouldnt it be polaris?,my south view is limited by house only really see procyon about half 9ish?,the way it ends up at the moment is wedge aligned i choose object to view and its about a inch half out in my 32mm eyepiece,any help would be greatful before i loose my mind.

[Ad Astra]

Hi Redfox,

The computer in the scope wants to know where things are well away from the pole - at least 20 degrees or so anyway. If you have a limited view, try this:

Set up with the best alignment you can manually, then select "accept last alignment" from the alignment menu. Let the scope slew to a star it knows, then you can sync to new stars that you can see and improve the alignment that way. I have the same problem - I have a front patio, and a back garden, but both have limited views of the sky, so I have to play games to get a good alignment.

It takes a bit of practice, and it wouldn't hurt to check the manual and read up on syncing and improving the pointing of the scope.

I hope that helps.

Dan

[redfox1971]

Thanks for the advice dan not sure I've seen that function in the menu but will have a look tonight maybe it's the precise goto function? Thanks again.