All that is necessary is to get close so if one
has a
sense of where north is, then that is probably good enough to being
alignment.

jon

I can't believe all the people who are always saying getting in the vacinity
of polaris is "good enough" for polar aligning.

Actually your rant is the result of misunderstanding my typo...

"probably good enough to being alignment." makes no sense.

What I meant to write was "probably good enough to BEGIN alignment."

In otherwords, one does not have to see Polaris visually in order to BEGIN the
polar alignment process.

One just has to get close enough to see it in the alignment scope or in the
scope itself.

I find that by setting the polar axis to the proper value and just making sure
the base is reasonably level that I can find Polaris without seeing it even
from a site I have never seen before.

jon