Thanks David. I think I have got stuck on the concept that it is the worst possible star for equatorial mounts and just assumed, without thinking, that it would be equally useless for alt-az mounts. I still struggle a but, because for less accurate alignments than the ones you are conducting, the user would be essentially pointing the scope at the same place in the sky every time they align, as polaris moves so little – I still struggle to see how this cannot introduce some kind of error, but again I think I’m over thinking it.
James