Good news. I was able to perform the alignment procedure Mat outlined above with excellent results on the first time. My target was Polaris, and I achieved multiple 45 second exposures similar to the one attached.

I normally use the Ubuntu version of Kstars on the interface end ( i.e. non-stellarmate end) however due to the recent upgrade to Kstars 3.6.6, platesolving is pretty much useless. I switched over to windows and ran Kstars 3.6.3 (which had a few performance issues, i.e. super slow and froze repeatedly) but it was able to sync multiple times unlike with 3.6.6 allowing me to perform the alignment procedure.

Clouds set in, and I could image only one target. I'm pretty confident in the process. I'll attempt again on a clear sky.

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