How to balance your mount

[Carole]

I bought myself an HEQ5 for taking to camp in future so i can leave my NEQ6 permanently mounted. 

I took the ED120 with me to camp for galaxy capture and found that one counterweight was slightly too light and 2 counterweights were definitely too heavy so I was scratching my head what to do to add some more weight to the counterweight end.

This is what i came up with - ha ha!
A pair of pliers stuck on with blue tac and strapped on for good measure with some knicker elastic I found amongst my junk.



It worked.  Must sort out a proper counterweight now.   

Carole

[RobertM]

That's a lot of knicker elastic Carole, I won't ask where that came from

[Carole]

It wasn't out of any knickers, I think it just got in with the camping guy ropes some-where.  Must have used it previously for something.

I thought that was quite funny, where there's a will etc.

I used to have a half sized counterweight (think I still have it), but it was for the CG5 GT and the hole is bigger and the bolt doesn't reach the counterweight bar.  I'll have to see about getting it adapted if I'm to use this combo again.

Carole

[Fay]

That amount of elastic must have come from a pair of drawers  Carole!!

[Mac]

why not slide the second weight up the bar?

Its all to do with levers.

Mac.

[Carole]

why not slide the second weight up the bar?

I did that Mac, I slid BOTH up the bar but it was too heavy with two.

It just needed a little more than 1 right at the end otherwise the scope end dropped, and with the pliers it balanced just right.

That amount of elastic must have come from a pair of drawers  Carole!!   

Among my other hobbies I also do sewing Fay, so it was probably a "left over" from something I made in the past. 

Carole