Crayford focuser tends to slip with camera attached

[Daniel]

Hi All, I finally got to take my new ED80 out last night, the field of view with this one is so much wider than with my newtonian, will finally be able to capture all of andromeda!

One problem i did find however is with the crayford focuser, I started pointing directly up at a few objects and soon found my shots were slipping out of focus, seems the weight of the camera is too much for the focuser to bear, is there any way to tighten the tension on the barrel.

I've looked on the net and it seems a few people have had the same problem, and there was mention of 2 screws, one locking screw and one tension screw, but i only seem to have the one screw on the bottom of the focuser for locking, which won't help me if im focusing on objects high in the sky

[mickw]

How about turning scope upside down ?
Focus knobs and focus lock on top.
Mick

[Daniel]

Hmmm, just tried that, still doesn't seem to help the situation, It's got quite bad too, I can barely focus right now unless the scope is pointing almost straight

One thing I do see are some Allen bolts at the bottom of the focuser, one is in the center and larger than the rest, could this be the tension screw?

[RobertM]

Hi Daniel,

I had a similar issue with the scope I bought last Saturday and I tightened it up with the centre allen screw.  I only did it as far as I thought it needed to hold focus holding the camera with the scope vertical, then locked it.  There is still slippage at each end of focus travel but it does hold wherever I leave it.

Cheers
Robert

[Mike]

You need to tighten up the lock adjuster with the allen screw.