Bubble level

[cjdawson]

It's a matter of 'how right is right.' People fit levelling bolts to fine tune their levelling after concrete setting, settlement and over time. This just isn't necessary.

On the tripod levelling question, I don't find I can get them precisely level in a minute. It takes me longer. Time spent going from 'close' to 'perfect' is, I'm arguing, time wasted. 

Olly

On seeing this, it does put a better explaination of what I do.  I get it close, with my bubble level, Basically, when I set up there's two legs on the north side, and one on the south.  So I put the tripod down.  Then use one bubble to get the two north legs level - as in the bubble between between the two black center lines.

Then I use the second bubble to raise the leg on the south side to get the second bubble between the lines.  It doesn't have to be perfect, it's not worth the time to get it from within the toloerance, to perfect.

But having done that, it's a great start to having my wedge tilt set for PA.

[de0s]

Let's call on Harry Potter for a demonstration! Harry will cause a steel shaft, the right thickness to fit snugly down your mount's polar axis, to hover in a fixed position and pointing precisely at the celestial north pole. No force, however strong, can affect the polar alignment of this hovering shaft. Thanks Harry.

Now we slip your mount's polar axis over this hovering shaft. The mount becomes perfectly aligned, by definition. Whatever we now do to it it will remain perfectly aligned. So let's attach a pier to it but a pier which doesn't quite reach the ground. We loosen the polar alignment bolts and point the pier wherever we like - and this has no effect whatever on polar alignment.

[...]

Olly

Thanks to Harry Potter for the "visual" aid... Using some props I realized I can completely adjust the RA axis (using only Alt/Az bolts) to match the Earth's rotation axis regardless of the tilt of the mount's base (of course if it's within the level of correction the bolts allow).

Thanks Olly for that

[bottletopburly]

For what its worth i seem to get better alignment now  than before