Lol, please don't laugh too hard!

But I found a way that has helped me with my alignment. I use the flashlight mode on my iPhone, and shine it through my polar scope. Boy, I was WAY off on my guesstimation. A few adjustments later, after I made sure it was nice and level, and I'm eking out almost 2 minute wide field subs. Not the greatest, but a heck of a lot better than the 30-45 second subs I was getting prior to this. Necessity is most definitely the mother of invention. I didn't drift align, so I'm sure I could have expanded on it, but this is more of a trial run, anyway.

Very clever Elizabeth, whatever gets it done right? I hope it helps you get started imaging sooner each night and produce more keepers. I know how frustrating it can be messing with gear when all I really want to do is get as many frames as possible from dark until dawn. You're developing techniques that are going to pay dividends and drift aligning will likely double your times. Can't wait to see your next series of images. Clear skies!

Unfortunately, something called work gets in the way, so I am lucky to be able to get out before midnight. I mucked around with my alignment for almost an hour, and was quite frustrated, but finally did this as a last ditch effort. Needless to say, I was startled, and pleased, to see how much help it was in getting it aligned. The first alignment star, Deneb, was a piece of cake. Then I was messing with the camera trying to frame things the way I wanted, and figuring out how long I could expose with little trailing. I ended up with only 46 minutes worth of images before my object, Orion, hit the meridian. By then, it was 2:30 in the morning, and I was cold and tired. Set my camera to take dark frames while driving back to the house, and I was surprised to only get 6 frames before the battery grip pooped out, LOL. In any case, I'm pleased with what I got, and have been having fun trying to milk out all the data I can. I'm still VERY new to this PP thing, so I'm sure I'll have several goes at it. Now I just want to add to the images I have, because it definitely is a teaser as to what it could be.