Polar Alignment

[smeech]

Ok here's a question for all you masters of maths and philosophers of physics:

Can you align a mount without the use of Polaris? Or the Southern star!

I only ask this rediculous question as I live in London. My balcony, which surprisingly is rather dark so may allow good viewing, faces south so to polar align I would have to have xray vision to see through the house!

Any genius' out there?

[bamus]

use compass to roughly point your mount towards North, and adjust latitude to your local, by using altitude bolts. And then start doing drift alignment, using PHD for example :

http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-discussion/120593-phd-drift-polar-alignment.html

or high mag eye piece with illuminated cross, or many others different drift alignment methods

[smeech]

Thanks for the reply. Means I can put the compass on my dive watch to use. Yeah!

Thanks again - knew it must be possible.

[bamus]

dont forget about magnetic declination:

Magnetic Declination & Grid Convergence

[smeech]

Oh of course.

Something to read on the train home I suppose!