It's all a balancing act

[Ewan]

Thanks for reading this.

Although i am not a novice i would like to ask people's opinions on how, why they balance their setup the way they do.

What i mean is when you see people say 'i balance mine East side heavy' etc etc what exactly does this mean.

I am sure i am not the only one who has seen this kind of thing, looked at their setup & thought hmmmm.

I balance mine in doors with the ota,guide ccd,fw & ccd all fitted, i get the payload exactly right so i can just push it gently either way, it gently slew's then stops slowly, shouldn't stop abruptly i think.

I then slide the tube backwards towards the ccd imager so it is very slightly rear end heavy.

Once setup & facing North to Polaris i am slewing to the right to Cepheus at the moment & imaging that area, now i find that having the counterweight at the end of the shaft works for me. 

All the times i have imaged this area i am not sure if the next is correct  but i think the weight is on the left of the scope/mount, now is this East side heavy or does East side heavy mean when imaging East you have more weight at the bottome of the shaft, imaging West you move the weight up the shaft slightly (this is what i have found).

Another way of 'looking' at it is imaging East the stars are going 'upwards' as it were so i have the weight lower down.

Don't get me wrong how i am doing it works fine but is the principle correct ?

When i first started out i read lot's of posts on lots of forums but never did i find a 'helpful' & very easy to follow answer to the above, maybe a Beginners sticky to setup would be a real help to new commers.

Pics comments would be great & further explain the 'correct' way to setup / image.

Ewan

[wuthton]

I don't bother myself but the idea behind being East heavy is to keep the gears braced together in the RA drive direction and prevent any slop.

After a meridian flip you are supposed to adjust your weight back to slightly East heavy so the gears remain braced.

[wxsatuser]

I have mine just slightly east heavy.

Imaging east of the meridian, counterweight end slightly heavier or move weight down a bit.

Imaging west of meridian is counterweight end lighter or move weight in a bit.

As above, stops your gears from slopping around and keeps em meshed.