On Sep 16, 8:04 am, "Steve Paul" wrote:
snip

Thanks to all. The answer to my narrow question regarding the
altitude adjustment is that it is not "due" east but any star "in the
eastern sky" near the celestial equator. Practically, this means
somewhere east-southeast, where the celestial equator has enough
altitude to conveniently acquire a target, but still as close to the
horizon as possible. Same principle applies to using a western sky
star. - Thanks, Canopus56