Polar Alignment Aids

Folks, I installed an east-west mechanical adjuster on my mount this weekend which was sitting in my miscellaneous scope box since 1996, not realizing what it was. Unfortuneately I had to remove the scope to install it. At least now the base is exactly level! The knobs tweak the base left or right as needed in very small increments. I haven't actually tried polar aligning yet, but last night Jupiter stayed in my webcam field of view with a 2.5x barlow for close to 20min so I think it should be close. The only down side to good polar alignment is now my dust motes become part of the image, where before, the planet was always moving and they always seemed to average out. I guess it's time to learn flat fields...

Regards,
Steve

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Also, I found some nice software called astrosnap pro which puts a reticle on the computer screen to help do the polar aligning with a webcam. Since a decent illuminated eyepiece costs $170 (which I don't have), this seems like a reasonable way to go. In the registered version, there's even an automatic polar aligner. Has anyone tried this and is a webcam useful here? I know the field of view is quite small.

Regards,
Steve

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