Quick dob mod - magnetic balancing strip

[FenlandPaul]

Finished work at lunchtime today and had an hour to use before picking the boys up from school. So I fitted a magnetic knife rack (£6.50 online) to the lower end of my dob in order to slide a weight up and down to achieve better balance when changing between, say, the 32mm Nagler and the 9mm.

Drilled two holes in the rack, then lined up on the dob, marked the holes, removed the mirror (a year until a good clean I think) and bolted the rack in line with my carry handles.

Ergonomically it might have been better to have it round the tube slightly nearer the observer, but I thought it would look a bit better and put less strain on the axis if it was plumb centre, in line with the handles. Just need some Hammerite now to finish it in black and also find a decent weight to move along it.

Saves hanging a small sack filled with bottled sand off the back of it!

Couple of pics below:

Now we just need some dark skies.

Paul

 

[John]

Very nice and effective Paul

I have one very similar on the back end of my 12" dob. Works a treat

I have a couple of old TAL counter weights but I used to use cast iron kitchen weights which worked well too.

[FenlandPaul]

21 minutes ago, John said:

 

I have a couple of old TAL counter weights but I used to use cast iron kitchen weights which worked well too.

It's why weight to use that's the challenge at the moment, John. Keeping my eyes peeled around the house for something useful! Don't have any kitchen weights and I think my wife would be quite cross if I used the digital kitchen scales instead!!

[Alan White]

That's a nice and simple solution, like that a lot.

 

[AdeKing]

Nice solution, I've been thinking about doing similar with the 12" Dark Star Dob that I'm renovating, so its nice to see that someone else has done the same.

Good luck with finding a suitable counterweight. Though I think that the suggestion of Cast Iron Kitchen Weights made by @John is a good one.

I'm also glad to see that I'm not the only one with a table of magnifications, FOVs, and a reminder of how the Newt flips what you're looking at taped to my OTA.

Ade

[Paz]

Nice, I also like the table of tfov exit pupil and magnification reminders.

[Ruud]