While doing some research on telescopes I found that polar alignment gives better tracking. never having aligned my scope using this mounting technique I thought I’d give it a try last night. It was more fiddly than using the simple Alt/Azimuth mount, but once aligned correctly (took me 3 tries to get it aligned anywhere near correctly though) the tracking was much superior! Instead of stars drifting slowly out of sight they just sat there, hardly moving from their initial location though the eyepiece!

I’ll leave the scope aligned this way for now but the comments about the spotting scope being useless for helping polar alignment weren’t far wrong. The eyepiece also tends to end up on the “bottom” of the scope at times making using it more awkward than it needs to be. That said, the much improved tracking is worth the effort.