You don’t need to align the mount very accurately for visual observation. Just align it by eye so the RA axis (that’s the fixed axis) points to the north star. (Do you know how to find the north star? If not use a star chart, such as you find on the Sky & Telescope web site, and note the relationship to the Big Dipper. Or just look here.)
For home viewing it doesn’t need to be too accurate. The mount needs to be level. Set the elevation angle to your latitude. Maine will be somewhere in the 45[sup]o[/sup] region but you can look it up. Then line up the main tube with finder scope attachec and get the north star in the finder scope.
“line up the main tube with finder scope attached” I didn’t complete this. Line up the mains tube with the elevation axis of the mount and then aim the thing by finding the north star in the scope.
Dang. Now I’m going to have to rebuild the finder scope, too. The focuser for it was greased, and somebody apparently sprayed it with WD40. That stuff is now in between the lenses. That’s OK, I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to clean it out. and replace the crosshairs. Sigh.
Ok. Fixed it all, crosshairs (pulled from my wife’s head, had to duck), dirty optics, etc. I put the finder back on the tube and fiddled wth it until what I had in the middle of the telescope was what I had in the middle of the finder. Geez, why was that so hard?! There are two rings for the finderscope, each with 3 screws.
So we went out and looked at Jupiter. Too cool. 3 moons visible, could see bands. Now my sons want to build a bigger one! Even the daughter has a (carefully concealed) interest. So, thanks to all for your very useful information. This stuff is basic enough that it’s been otherwise sorta hard to find.
First of all, an alt/az mount does not have an RA axis. Next, you really do not need to align an alt/az mount! It’s basically “point-and-shoot”. OTOH, an equatorial mount needs to be aligned (if used with a clock drive) since it emulates the turning of the earth. …An alt-ax mount cannot emulate such motion. Alt/az is short for altitude-azimuth. In brief, the telescope moves left and right (azimuth, meaning along the horizon) and up and down (altitiude).