The art of balancing a scope

[prasadka]

Hello,

My first attempt in balancing the scope by myself ended up in a miserable failure.I tried and tried and tried but could not succeed until dark. So I decided to give up, lest I would damage the equipment. The scope was succesfully balanced in the horizontal position, but when I moved it back vertical, it would fall over to the horizontal position again, also, I could not get the scope balanced on the Dec either.

Where could I possibly be going wrong?

Regards.

A horribly disappointed..

Prasad

[Andrew*]

hmmm... what's the set-up?

You may well need another counterweight if the tubes falling down from vertical. Move the counterweights further down the bar.

Andrew

[saturn5]

This movie link may be of help.

http://www.andysshotglass.com/BalancingScope.html

[prasadka]

hmmm... what's the set-up?

You may well need another counterweight if the tubes falling down from vertical. Move the counterweights further down the bar.

Andrew

I have a C8N on a CG 5 mount with the default counterweights.

Well I am sure I have gone wrong somewhere and wont need counterweights, because Chris was able to help me balance it perfectly when he was around. Do you guys remove the counterweights off the mount once job finished for the day? Will the gears be harmed if the weights aren't removed?

Regards,

Prasad

[Whippy]

Monseuir, allow me to give you a few pointers...These are approximate, and obviously some fine tuning will be required!

Your two counterweights will need to be about two thirds of the way down the counterweight shaft, about an inch between the two. And your OTA will need to be quite far back (a lot of people don't realise how heavy those primary mirrors are!), give or take where the orange Celestron logo is where the left hand tube ring should be (assuming the tube is horizontal). Don't forget to put your finder and eyepiece in when you're doing it (and screw them in, they might fall out!) as it'll be out of balance when you put them on if you do it without them.

Balancing a scope on an EQ mount does take a little practice, but once you've cracked it you'll be doing it in no time.

HTH

Tony..

PS. To anyone else, these are ROUGH placings for a C8N/CG5 set up, I only know these as I've got one and Prasad has one. Don't assume these are the same for any other 8" newt and mount! (SW200/EQ5/HEQ5 etc etc)

[prasadka]

Hi

Thanks for the tips. I will keep that in mind next time when I set things up- hopefully tomorrow night. My OTA was roughly up where the orange celestron logo was (precisely near the "L" of the celestron). I tried different sorts of positions for the weights, to no avail. Probably, as they say, practice maketh man perfect.

Regards,

Prasad

[Whippy]

Indeed sir, if you practice now while it's cloudy then you won't waste any time when you want to observe!

Is it cloudy over there in Ipswich? Go on, do it now! Better than watching telly...

Tony..

[prasadka]

Clear skies.. in Ipswich, but I am a bit scared after i failed once. Also, I dont have any lights in my garden to get me booted. Will feel a bit more positive tomorrow.

Cheers,

Prasad

[The Warthog]

My C6N has a heavy finderscope and eyepiece on it, most of the time. Although the scope balances when level, the finderscope and ep tend to pull it off balance on the side the focuser is on when the scope is pointing very high. There isn't really anything you can do about this, but the weight isn't enough to hurt your gearing. It just occurs to me that there may be a position that balances if you rotate the tube, but I haven't tried that.

[prasadka]

Mate..I think you hit the nail on the head there. I did not have the finder when I tried balancing on Friday. So, my balancing wasn't off the mark then. I thought it was off the mark. Now I feel much better.

[Ant]

Just caught up with this thread.

The focuser and EP are only on one side of the tube and will have an effect unless they are in one position (opposite side of the tube to the weights). If you add a camera it gets worse.

There is no way round this on a reflector with adding more weight opposite to the focuser (bit like balancing a wheel after putting on a new tyre!

Ant

[The Warthog]

Yeah, that's what I figured. You probably have a little tolerance one way or t'other from exactly opposite the weights, but that's often not a useful position.