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Lu This is the 'heart of it' isn't it.  I, too, would like to know.  i'm sure it's been covered.  To circumvent environmental issues,  I've chosen to  practice my first sights on measuring the separation of Venus and Jupiter over the last month.  It has been most gratifying.  It looks like, in terms of accuracy, I'm well within 2 of the calculated value, (which I know isn't very good). These are ideal situations (except, possibly, the finite angular extent and assymmetry of Venus).  I have absolutely NO excuses.  But I'm learning and hopefully will get better. My sextant is old and heavy and the telescope is low power (like training wheels!).  I think this an advantage, stability-wise.  I remember a 'maker' stabilization system for small cameras was simply to strap a brick to the camera.  It works famously- but that's a bit off topic.   In any case, I've got lots of questions suggested by my month-long project. I will share my results and hope to get a comment or two.

Norm