Fork mount dec circle setting?

Hello! My C8's instruction manual tells me when polar aligning to first orient the OTA such that the dec circle setting is 90 degrees and the OTA is parallel to the forks. It seems to me that there's plenty of possibility for pointing errors during this procedure: the OTA may not be perfectly parallel to the forks, and the dec circle might be misaligned. Are these kinds of errors tuned out during drift alignment? Thanks!

Joe Hoener said:

Are these kinds of errors tuned out during drift alignment? Thanks!

Yes.

Joe Hoener said:

Hello! My C8's instruction manual tells me when polar aligning to first orient the OTA such that the dec circle setting is 90 degrees and the OTA is parallel to the forks.

Goodness, why? What do you do with the OTA after this initialization?

It seems to me that there's plenty of possibility for pointing errors during this procedure: the OTA may not be perfectly parallel to the forks, and the dec circle might be misaligned. Are these kinds of errors tuned out during drift alignment? Thanks!

Yes. To expand on Rod's answer , drift alignment aligns the axis of symmetry of your mount with the celestial axis. Since any miscalibration of the declination circle and/or misalignment of the OTA/fork joint does not affect the axis of symmetry of the mount, they do not adversely impact the accuracy of drift alignment.

That's not to say that those miscalibrations won't have any effect. Miscalibration of the declination circle will affect any attempt to use the analog setting circles after polar alignment. And if the OTA is not parallel to the forks, there will be sections of the polar regions (probably very small) where the OTA cannot be pointed exactly. But these will not affect tracking over the vast majority of the celestial sphere.