Hi - I've commented on this a few times here & thought it worth putting some quick piks together - I'll probably do the same when we next image if the salted ice bag is necessary to get the mirror to ambient to show how simple & quick it is...but apologies for the quality of the piks due to their being poor quality iphone snaps!
I have the EQ8 head (which has 2 handles) mounted on a piece of thick circular MDF using a couple of c/sunk threads & nuts to secure it thereon...this makes it very easy to lift manually by grabbing the handles, tilting it forward to balance on the edge of the MDF & lifting with the opposite edge of the MDF resting against your midriff - very ergonomic!
But here we see it sitting on the hydraulic lift table jacked up to slightly above the height of the tripod top - actually a motorbike lift & around $100US purchased new.
I've raised it to this height to allow me to rest the edge of the MDF's underside on the edge of the tripod top where the mount head attaches...then removed the bolts securing the head to the MDF (removing the nuts & pushing the bolts out via the underside of the MDF - the lift table has a cutaway section in the tabletop.)
The mount head is pushed to the side to rest principally on the tripod top...then the lift table is pushed aside slightly to allow the head to sit squarely on the tripod top to be bolted down: note that there is no delicate balancing act fraught with risk for this part of the operation - it is all very secure & I would not attempt anything risky whatsoever at my age & with my financial predicament! .
The C14 is rolled in on the lift table on a similar piece of MDF with the mount head's RA swung such that the c/weight bar is parallel to the ground (no weights!) with the mount head's dovetail jaws open ready to accept the C14 dovetail.
Using the wheels of the lift table to position the C14's dovetail roughly we wiggle the tube itself slightly to get the jaws & dovetail mated - this is a simple, easy & light process...
Once mated up we close the mount head's jaws so that there is still ability to raise the scope via the lift table hydraulics but keep it within the jaws...we have marked the d/tail for where different imaging rigs & the scope have their Dec balance. ("MC" & "MM" designating colour & mono camera trains.)
The mount head jaws are tightened up once we have raised the scope to the correct height & then the counterweights are placed in their (marked) positions for RA balance & the entire shebang swung into position...although if we need to cool the scope we will leave it resting with the RA bar parallel to the ground position (with scope facing straight down & weights attached) to apply the bag of salted ice...another simple & quick procedure..!