Balancing a Nexstar OTA

[steve_bham]

Whats the best way of finding the balance of the Nexstar OTA on the mount.

Ive found out that if its off balance when it moves up or down it judders slightly.

[MeerkatinBKK]

Take the OTA off the mount, and load it with the accessories you usually use (dew shield, diagonal, eyepiece etc). Pop a pencil on a table and carefully place the OTA across it until you find the balance point/fulcrum. Mark it on the OTA and then line it up with the "V" sign on the fixed part of the mount (the "V" sign marking the point where the altitude nut is) when you reattach the OTA.

Voila, one balanced OTA! Works for me anyway. When doing the balancing on a pencil bit, remember to lightly support both ends of the OTA underneath so it doesn't risk banging down hard on said table.

Hope that helps,

Nick

[steve_bham]

Hi Nick,

Thanks for that, is it normal to judder if its not balanced correctly?

[martin_h]

I've not noticed any judder on mine, but I do the balance on the pencil trick

[red dwalf]

i noticed that my mount used to judder or slip when operating the dec motor on my mount (cg5 gt) and it was off target when slewing, sounded to me like the motor was slipping when i had the scope attached but ok when not, looked at the motor and found it was fitting a little loose on the teeth gears so adding weight made it slip, was very easy to adjust, one alan key and realigned it to mesh better and no problems since.

[MeerkatinBKK]

Hi Steve,

Perhaps surprisingly the only time I had a slight judder was the first time I fitted the dew shield. I hadn't appreciated how much of a difference it made to the balance point. After re-balancing it solved the problem.

You should also notice more accurate Gotos and tracking after doing the balance trick.

Nick