50 replies to this topic

[vicuna]

how often throughout the night are you all rebalancing your refractors? 

 

for those with adjustable clutches, if you move from a 2 lbs eyepice to a 1/2 pound eyepiece, would you rebalance, or just crank down on the clutch?

 

is moving the dovetail the best way to do this? or do you loosen the rings and slide your telescope?

 

just wondering what you all do. I observe alone usually so have not learning things like this...I kinda make up my own thing but I'm sure I can do better.

 

thank you!

[Astrojensen]

Depends on the situation. I rebalance as often as necessary. Sometimes just at the start of the night, other times several times during the night. Sometimes it's enough to tighten the clutch a little more, sometimes I need to rebalance. It depends on the scope I'm using, the eyepieces, etc. There are no set rules, it's highly situational. 

 

 

Clear skies!

Thomas, Denmark

[sevenofnine]

Only when I'm switching from heavier 2" to lighter 1.25" eyepieces 

Edited by sevenofnine, 24 June 2025 - 02:11 PM.

[eyespy]

I find that sliding the dovetail in the mount is the easiest. This assumes that the scope is balanced using the rings and with your average rear loading. The dovetail can then be attached relative to the rings depending upon whether you normally use heavier gear or not. This will then give you easier adjustments using the dovetail when the load changes.

 

Doug…..

Edited by eyespy, 24 June 2025 - 02:26 PM.

[Jethro7]

Hello Vicuna,

My initial set up routine is to balance the scope and diagonal with the rings and dovetail bar centered in the saddle. Then I repeat this with no eyepiece placed in the diagonal and mark that spot on the dovetail and repeat with the heaviest eyepiece and mark the spot and then mark the spot on the dovetail right in between the other marks for a place to start. There is an interplay between scope balance and clutch tension. I set my scope balance biased slightly towards the front of the scope. That and keeping the clutch tension set a little tighter most always keep my scopes balanced well enough where I don't have to fiddle with anything though out the entire viewing session, even when swapping out eyepieces. The nice thing is, I generally only have to do this process once for each scope and some of my scopes have been good to go for many years.

 

HAPPY SKIES AND KEEP LOOKING UP Jethro

Edited by Jethro7, 24 June 2025 - 04:02 PM.

[betacygni]

I balance in the middle, ie a point between my lightest and heaviest. This typically averages out to be good enough for everything (unless you have extreme ends of the spectrum). I almost never touch clutch tension. I’ll never rebalance a scope mid observing session, too much that can go catastrophically wrong.

There are ways to balance out extremes as well, such as the brass Televue 2” to 1.25” equalizer. Or, just use only eyepieces about the same weight.

Edited by betacygni, 24 June 2025 - 06:26 PM.

[briansalomon1]

NP101is has a clam shell with bat wing adjustment screw. It's nothing to rebalance and I do it all the time. I like having the telescope balanced enough to leave the alt/az friction adjustments just a little past "snug". If I need them tighter than that I rebalance.

 

I use the telescope with/without a binoviewer, with Nagler 31mm down to Nagler 5mm, with an etalon/blocking filter/binoviewer.

[ris242]

AM5N - never.

 

just switch it on before I mount the scope.

If I'm going to bino........just slide the tube toward mount a little more.

 

 

can't say it was overly important with a EQ6 GT............close enough was good enough.

Edited by ris242, 24 June 2025 - 09:56 PM.

[weis14]

I'm a big fan of trim weights.  A good trim weight lets you balance small changes without moving the scope.  Between that and a TeleVue equalizer for very light eyepieces, I almost never need to balance by moving the scope itself.

[quilty]

there isn't that "best practice" (which would be just one then)
Depends on the concrete situation.
Rods with a sliding weight may be great but not necessary always. I'd be fine with letting slide the tube in the rings - if I only could tighten the knobs with my hands without a tongs.
At moment I'm fine with an 1/4 lb coiled spring sliding perfectly over the 3/4" two-axis control and straight findertube. Using 1/4" stuff only it seems to do.



The dewtube is quite a weight. It helps, too at balancing, no need to extend it completely each time

Edited by quilty, 25 June 2025 - 05:31 AM.

[vicuna]

I'm a big fan of trim weights.  A good trim weight lets you balance small changes without moving the scope.  Between that and a TeleVue equalizer for very light eyepieces, I almost never need to balance by moving the scope itself.

Do you use that on your Rowan mount? Is that the bar with the little slidey weight? Do you mind a quick cliffs notes on where you mount it and how you use it?

 

Thank you everyone!! I can definitely fine tune my techniques pre-session and during session on this.

 

I notice that my altitude slow motion control is a bit jerky on my mount if my scope is not balanced right…especially moving up. So that’s kind of my signal that my scope can use balancing. (I think I can play with the tension of that too to overcome this a little - but haven’t figure it out).

[Paul G]

Never.

[betacygni]

Do you use that on your Rowan mount? Is that the bar with the little slidey weight? Do you mind a quick cliffs notes on where you mount it and how you use it?

Thank you everyone!! I can definitely fine tune my techniques pre-session and during session on this.

I notice that my altitude slow motion control is a bit jerky on my mount if my scope is not balanced right…especially moving up. So that’s kind of my signal that my scope can use balancing. (I think I can play with the tension of that too to overcome this a little - but haven’t figure it out).

It also matters how you initially balance the scope. Don’t balance it while the scope is horizontal, this ignores the y-axis balance. Rather when I balance the scope I do so with it pointing up to the sky, at about the middle of the altitude range I normally use. This will average out your y-axis balance as well.

[Kevin Barker]

With my Tak fc-100DZ I tend to adjust the clam shell and slide the ota to balance in DEC. I also adjust the counterweight in RA if required(e.g. going from mono to bino viewing)

 

Depends on your mount but personally I like the moments to balance.

[Jon Isaacs]

Nearly all my refractor mounts are Alt-Az mounts with slow motion controls with adjustable clutches. 

 

The scopes themselves are balanced, the clutches may need adjustment at the beginning of the evening and occasionally during the evening.

 

I never slide or rebalance scope over the course of the evening. I set the clutches so they are light enough to provide smooth panning but tight enough so the do not shift with my heaviest eyepieces.. Currently my heaviest is the 31 mm Nagler.

 

 

I balanced my scopes pretty much as Jethro describes 

 

Jon

[Mike Q]

I don't bother with rebalancing.  The iOptron mount doesnt really care all i need to be is reasonably close.

[ichdien]

What is this "rebalancing" thing of which you speak?  Asking for my 105 and 155 refractors and DM4 and 6, who are unfamiliar with the concept.

[quilty]

The longer the scope grows the smoother the horizontal axis of the az mount the more this is an issue.
inserting another ep in a 50cm distance from the axis or just pulling out the drawtube shifts the balance.

No issue there using SC scopes or a classical cassegrain

[25585]

I find that sliding the dovetail in the mount is the easiest. This assumes that the scope is balanced using the rings and with your average rear loading. The dovetail can then be attached relative to the rings depending upon whether you normally use heavier gear or not. This will then give you easier adjustments using the dovetail when the load changes.

 

Doug…..

Same here, slide the bar in its clamp. 

[25585]

Its good to have a long bar with stops at each end, like the Primaluces, and a long clamp like the Geoptik

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[Princess Leah]

Having to constantly shift and rebalance is often a sign that you have undermounted the OTA.

[eyespy]

Hi Princess,

 

Depends upon how much friction you prefer. I only use AZ mounts and without slow motion controls. I mostly star and finder hop and prefer that my scopes move with a minimum amount of resistance in azimuth and declination, hence the requirement for more accurate balance. Even the weight of the finder will affect the balance once you are above approximately 60*.

 

Doug…..

Edited by eyespy, 26 June 2025 - 02:47 PM.

[quilty]

Having to constantly shift and rebalance is often a sign that you have undermounted the OTA.

It's rather a sign that

the scope is too long

the balance is a fine one and indicates the tiniest load change. I prefer to move the scope with one finger in both axis without a friction to overcome. When you clutch it and use the slo mo gears that's for the EQ mode, for AZ I want a virtually resistanceless push

Edited by quilty, 26 June 2025 - 06:21 PM.

[ris242]

It's rather a sign that   the scope is too long

the balance is a fine one and indicates the tiniest load change. I prefer to move the scope with one finger in both axis without a friction to overcome. When you clutch it and use the slo mo gears that's for the EQ mode, for AZ I want a virtually resistanceless push

There's a difference between wanting to swap light and heavy eyepieces...........vs wanting to push a scope around with one finger.

 

The undermounting is the problem as stated above.

 

If I have a alt/az EQ6 capable of holding 20kg and I have the clutches on, if I'm holding a 5-6kg scope 600mm long to 1400mm long its not gonna be a drastic change.

The 102 f/11 - the mount wouldn't break into a sweat.

Its quite easy to balance with the focuser in the correct position........have a light eyepiece in the diagonal.move the OTA 3-4 inches closer to the mount.......lock everything in place and then you're okay to switch to heavy EP's that put the weight a bit further back.

 

finger pushing - you would be rebalancing with every different weighted eyepiece you use.

 

5 years with the EQ6 I probably did that twice. I switched to fluidheads with counterbalance that have a minimum (counterbalance) weight of 4kg.........up to 18kg loads.

[Lentini]

I predominantly use alt az manual push to…

I have the lightest eyepiece to the heaviest…

My balancing is done using long vixen rails.

When needed, I loosen the clamp, slide the rail, tighten the clamp. A sliding weight on a rod would do the same, but I haven’t found one. Long vixen rails do just fine, though.