I am having a hard time getting my head around the final part of PA - maybe I am missing a step which is messing me up, or maybe my IQ just dropped, in any case, would appreciate some advice please.

• I can set my scope with line of sight on the NCP. (want to master this before moving to other orientations)
• I run PAA with the mount starting from standard parking position.
• I am using the default values. 30deg east for the second shot, another 30deg east for the third shot.
• Start the refresh phase in Plate Solve mode and try to dial in Alt first followed by Az.
• I should stress, I am being very patient, waiting for 2-3 shots before re-adjusting.
• Got totally confused here and ended up chasing my tail. Apart from needing tiny adjustments, it's almost as if I need to use the Az adjustment to dial in the Alt setting and vice versa. When I change one knob, both error values are changing.

Questions

1. If an arrow is pointing upward for Alt, is it telling me to point higher up, or telling me I am too high already?
2. Same for Az, if an arrow is pointing right, is it telling me to move right, or I am too far right?
3. On screen the error triangle green and yellow components refer to which adjustment?
4. Since my scope is now rotated at 60deg east, does Alt still relate to pure up/down on the screen or do I basically have to lean my head 60deg to the right when looking at the screen in order to understand the correct angle to push the scope?
5. What would happen if I re-park the scope before starting the Refresh phase? Would this destroy the error calculation?
6. Would it be better to pre-rotate the scope 60deg west before starting PAA so that the final orientation is approximately at zero deg and matches the screen orientation more closely?

I've had two frustrating nights where I thought I was getting the hang of it, then the clouds rolled in before I could complete. I now have a week of cloud forecast before I can try this again.

If an arrow is pointing upward for Alt, is it telling me to point higher up, or telling me I am too high already?

Arrow pointing up tells you that you are pointing too low and need to put up more. Similar for Az, at least those were my intentions. Which knob to turn, though is a function of your mount. Note that if your mount is seriously out of level, then your adjustment knobs affect both Alt and Az.

error triangle green and yellow components

These triangles apply to the "Move Star" or "Move Star and Calc Error" schemes. If you select that before you click refresh then the display says "Adjust mount's altitude knob to move the star along the yellow line, then adjust the mount's azimuth knob to move it along the green line until the selected star is within the crosshair." If you are using the "Plate Solve" scheme (which I recommend) then the triangle isn't as meaningful. Just reduce the errors it gives you until you are sub 1 arc-minute.

Since my scope is now rotated at 60deg east, does Alt still relate to pure up/down on the screen or do I basically have to lean my head 60deg to the right when looking at the screen in order to understand the correct angle to push the scope?

Alt still refers to up/down. Don't tilt your head.

What would happen if I re-park the scope before starting the Refresh phase? Would this destroy the error calculation?

That would be a mistake. Don't move the scope, other than making the az/alt adjustments. If you did re-park it, you should stop and restart the polar alignment process.

Would it be better to pre-rotate the scope 60deg west before starting PAA so that the final orientation is approximately at zero deg and matches the screen orientation more closely?

In theory, it should work equally well either way. Personally, when I'm polar aligning near the pole, I start vertical.

Also, I'd recommend being happy with any sub arc-minute result and not try to polar align to 0 arc-seconds. I think that there is sufficient noise in these measurements to make doing that a waste of your time.

Good luck!

Thanks so much for the detailed reply. Your points sound entirely logical, but I have to inform you that I am not getting the expected results. This evening is clear, so I just completed a full setup outside with polar alignment. A sequence is running, I just came in to warm up.

Actual Procedure
1. The tripod and mount was set outside and was leveled during daylight.
2. Tonight I used my guide scope during polar align with lower resolution so images are processed faster.
3. After taking the three shots and slewing, initial error reported on ALT was 3deg 05min with a Large arrow pointing up (this is the arrow on the left side of the dialog box). Initial error on AZ was 0deg 32min. Small arrow pointing left (arrow on the right side of the dialog box) The large ALT error surprised me because I had not changed the ALT knob setting from the last session (reason is revealed below!!)
4. I selected Plate Solve method and started Refresh at 4 seconds.
5. I started adjusting my ALT knob to raise the scope, the ALT error numbers DID NOT CHANGE (just minor fluctuations which had been misleading me I guess), but the AZ error jumped to -0deg 30min and the arrow was now pointing right.

6. It was now obvious to me that the ALT and AZ error displays are reversed on screen so I proceeded on this assumption.

7. Dialed the ALT (AZ arrow) to within 30 seconds.
8. I then used the AZ knobs to correct the ALT error. Once again, the AZ error numbers basically DID NOT CHANGE, just some minor fluctuations because I was touching the mount.
9. Once I mastered the fact that the screen display is reversed, it was not so difficult to quickly dial both axes down to about 30 arc seconds each.

I have no idea why this reversed display is happening.

I am running INDI on a Rasp Pi 4, control is via a Windows 10 Pro PC with KStars installed. Connection is by direct Ethernet.
Earlier in the day, I had done a complete update of the Stellarmate OS on the Rasp Pi, via the terminal. I did this by direct connection (KVM), downloading via my home wifi.

I can check version numbers tomorrow if you want me to.

I know this sounds like an April Fools joke, but believe me, the error displays ARE reversed.

I've just started using KStars/Ekos, but I have certainly already hit this problem.

My first *batch* of attempts to use the polar alignment assistant were just as you are describing: while the yellow hint line is supposed to represent the desired adjustment in Altitude and the green line Azimuth, it was obvious that altitude adjustments were "moving" the FOV along the green line and vice versa.

Usually such issues, when the telescope driving software seems confused about the directions, tells you it's moving one way but actually goes another and so on, are indicative of the fact the driver is confused about where and how the telescope is pointed.
The "how" part was what I noticed was wrong in my case: the Side of Pier reported by the driver was not matching the side of my tripod the telescope was on.

Unfortunately, in my case (Takahashi Temma driver) it is impossible to just tell the driver to change the side (I believe there's an open thread on this forum about that), so the way to go for me was to physically move the telescope onto the side the driver thought it was on, re-solve the position and re-attempt the alignment procedure.

From that point the adjustment lines provided by the polar alignment assistant were matching the actual axes the are supposed to represent.

However, I still never managed to harness the polar alignment routine in Ekos, because even after figuring out the situation described above, adjusting the mount according to the provided instructions were increasing my polar alignment error. Quite literally: I record the calculated error, adjust as the assistant is telling me, re-run the procedure, and the error is like twice as much.

I ended up resorting to the good ol' drift alignment method via PHD2, which worked like it should.

Full disclosure: later on I realized that my GPS dongle was not working (still not sure what's wrong with it, but neither gpsmon nor cgps were showing any fix), so that could have been at least part of the problem. I noticed that after having already aligned using the drift method, and switched the EKos settings to using manual time/location and to Ekos providing them to all equipment, and at least driving the scope around the sky, as well as doing guided exposures worked fine from then on.

My point being: confirm whether the telescope is where (in the cumulative sense of location, time, side of pier and, obviously, the exact location in the sky) the driver thinks it is.

Good luck!

Just a quick update based on one more night worth of experience.

This time I

• made sure my dysfunctional GPS was not used by KStars
• Performed the initial solve/sync in the position my mount driver "wanted" me to be in (West of pier, pointing East)
• Started right away with PHD2 drift alignment, and quickly brought my PA to within 5'

After that, for the sake of experiment, I pointed the telescope towards the pole and tried the PA assistant within Ekos. It worked like a charm.
No confusion of axes and the error actually decreased after doing the suggested adjustments.

Thanks so much, sorry for not replying earlier, the weather has been awful so I have been indoors sulking!!

Just an update.

I am using MoveStar & Calc Error method.

Things seem to be working logically now. Arrows are pointing where they are expected.

At my latitude, the yellow line for alt adjustments is orientated at 10 o'clock to 4 o'clock. Green line for azimuth adjustments is orientated at 1o'clock to 7 o'clock.

I can now get a PA error of less than 10 arc seconds dialed in within 1-2 minutes.