OK still learning as I go here, & this weekend I encountered a puzzler while seeing if I could reel a couple M's near to celestial north. I'm hoping this is just an operational error :-)

I have a G5 on a German equatorial mount, & what I wanted to do was angle my telescope down a bit so I could hone in on M's 80 & 81 (just poking around out there). But *ack!* there is no 'down' when you're pointing near-due-north! At least, not without either altering the latitude setting, or skewing the north alignment so I can rotate on the declination.

Now, neither of these would be big deals, except that obviously my motor tracking isn't going to be as effective (if at all), & I would like to get into some astrophotography in the near future.

Am I missing something obvious? Or is there a not-too-hack workaround?