The solid lines are what you want to use in the northern hemisphere. ?The depictions of the Big Dipper and Cassiopeia are there to help get the scope roughly oriented. ?For a quick & dirty alignment, I do just twist the polar scope to put the Big Dipper in the right area and adjust the mount’s altitude & azimuth until Polaris is centered in its gap, but really that’s only a starting point. ?From there, delta Ursa Minor should be close to the gap marked “2nd star” — it should be obvious which star it is because there’s not much else visible in the polar region. You want to twist the polar scope until Delta UMa is lined up in the gap in the long line. ?Then you may have to go back and re-adjust the mount’s altitude & azimuth to put Polaris back in its gap. ?Iterate until they’re both in the right place; it usually only takes one or two rounds. ?There’s another star, 51 Cep, that should line up in the gap in the line that’s around 11:30 in your photo, but it’s pretty faint and may not be visible. ?I don’t bother with it. ?

The tick marks around the gaps for Delta UMa and 51 Cep are where those stars should line up for the different years printed on the reticle. ?In the northern hemisphere, they go counter-clockwise over time — the first two ticks are for 2005 and 2010, then the one that has the long lines is for 2020, and the last tick is for 2030 (with the obvious interpolation in between). ? Notice how the years are printed 05-10-20-30 going counter-clockwise. ?(It’s the reverse for the southern hemisphere, the years increase clockwise so the legend is printed 30-20-10-05.)

The other markings — the dotted lines, and the sets of tick marks that don’t have leaders to the pole — are for the southern hemisphere. ?

See the attached — it has a slightly different version of the updated reticle but it’s nearly identical. ?With a little practice you can get pretty good alignment. ?The last couple of times I did it, when I went to refine with a drift alignment I really couldn’t see any drift to adjust out. ?Of course the next time I’ll probably be way off…. ?