EQ5/6 latitude bolts

[martin_h]

As we all know these bolts are not the best thing about these mounts, the main problem being the amount of extension needed for higher latitudes and the angle of the peg they act on - usualy causing the bolt to dive under the peg and thus bend.

I was thinking the other day (like one does) would it be possible to put the whole mount head onto a fixed wedge of say 45 deg, so that for my latitude (52 deg) I would only have to adjust to about 7 deg, thus putting less strain on the bolts.

I am obs based and the whole lot sits on a pier and could be a perminant fixture.

Can anyone see any problems with this??

[Gina]

Sounds a reasonable idea but not sure it's necessary. With my NEQ6 Pro I slackened it off and set it to the lattitude angle on the scale then tightened the bolts. When doing the polar alignment I just had to let it down a midget's whisker to attain correct alignment - I used drift alignment. The main thing is to undo the bolt you're NOT trying to screw in - obvious but easily missed.

[Bizibilder]

As long as the polar axis is aligned with the pole, and the dec axis is at 90° to it, it doesn't matter in which direction the rest of the mount points! Wall mounted, hanging from the roof etc will all work - its just that they are not quite so securely attached to the nearest planet.

Seriously - the only problem that I can see would be that the azimuth bolts would also have some effect on the mounts altitude setting if you used a "partial" wedge. Ideally for the alt and azi bolts to work independently of each other the base of the mount should be level.

[russellhq]

If I understand you correctly, it sounds like something similar to what I tried but what happens is you completely shift the centre of gravity of the mount and things then start to get unbalanced.

They way I did it was to drop one of the tripod legs but it just made the whole thing unstable

[russellhq]

I thought about drilling through the peg and attaching a bolt that's padded out with washers thus moving the contact point closer to the adjustmet bolt.