I take the pictures right from my back yard here in McMurray, about 5 miles south of South Hills Village Mall. As you have found, polar aligning stinks, and was perhaps my worst nemesis. Subsequently, take a look at the attachments. This summer I built a cantilever attachment to my deck... I park my car under the deck itself, so sinking the pole right through the middle was out -grin-. believe it or not, the deck boards actually go just about straight north-south, so rough aligning the scope is fairly easy. However, it gets a bit difficult from this point on, since my neighbors tree (off the picture to the left) totally destroys any hope of seeing Polaris through the foliage. I had to wait until fall before I could properly try to align the LX50 wedge. Not shown in the picture is the circular wooden stool top that I bolted to the top of the pole. I drilled holes to anchor the wooden disc to both the pier AND to the wedge. Heck.....give me a minute or two here to grab my digital camera and go out and take a picture of the darn thing......

Brrr, getting cold out. Oh well, continue.... Enter October, the leaves fall off, I can see Polaris! So, I bolted the wooden disc down (I countersunk all holes that were drilled) to the pier. Then I took the wedge (minus the Optical Tube Assembly) and eyeballed it on polaris. Drilled holes to match the CENTER of the three lockdown holes on the bottom of the wedge (this gives you a good 30 degree fudge factor on your rough align due to the extra play the oblong holes give you). I then put the OTA back on the wedge, carefully put the LX50 on the wooden disc, and LIGHTLY secured the bolts with wingnuts. I then set the scope pointing directly in line with the fork arms (90 degrees on the dec scale) and aimed it directly at Polaris. I aligned the Orion Easyfinder (great little red dot!) on Polaris as well so that I no longer needed to look through the scope. I then gently rotated the wedge AND lowered the declination bolt on the wedge until the scope was pointing roughly a moon and a half's distance AWAY from Polaris in the direction of the two pointer stars of the big dipper. I finally locked these bolts down VERY tightly, since it took me over an hour of making adjustments, since every time I needed to adjust the declination, I had to take the OTA off the wedge! Without this effort, I never would never have achieved the M42 photo (which was the first deep sky taken after the wedge was put in place). The deck and the pier were a lot of work, so I'll keep the wedge locked where it is year round! If need be, I'll go out and purchase a new wedge for "field" excursions. I do keep it covered with a heavy duty garbage bag and a bungee cord.

The drift I have in my scope now is due primarily to the poor drive mechanism of the LX50 gears. If it wasn't for the 2700mm focal length of the Mak, it probably would not be that big of a deal, but with the narrow focal length as it stands, the drive is barely adequate. I'm looking at replacing the LX50 fork arms with a Losmandy GM-11 this spring, so I probably won't need to buy another wedge.