Okay, so today we're actually gonna look at how we do a balancing of the mount So this is a panoptisk unit There's an equatorial mount here on the tripod and the head is here I've got it not very well balanced here. So you can see it's it wants to go its own way driven by the weight The first thing to do is to figure out where are the locking screws? So here is one this is locking the right ascension axis and here is the other one This is the declination axis. So again, we have two locking screws one for each axis The right ascension axis is what is is is the largest Moving mass and then the declination axis is just moving the head So once we figure out where those two are the first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna balance the declination axis So we're gonna take the right ascension axis and we're gonna put it horizontal I'm not gonna worry that that is not balanced yet. I'm just gonna lock it So that it stays horizontal the first thing we're gonna do is balance the head So I've got it everything's locked right now and I know it's not balanced So if I release the declination axis Just it just moves by itself, which is not good. I want it to be able to rotate The declination axis to rotate smoothly whichever direction I'm looking so The reason this is not good right now is The center of mass the essentially the point around which all the masses distributed in the head is not aligned with the rotation axis. So here if I'm leaving the unit here looking up and I let it go It wants to spin it wants to spin because the center of mass is that way. So It's a really two-dimensional Adjustment there is the center of mass can be offset that way or it can be offset that way So there are two steps to this the first one is to put the head looking up like this And letting it go I let it go again with the break off and it wants to spin that way That means there is too much mass this way now the good thing is I can change that because I've got this Dovetail and it's locking mechanism so I can actually move it So I know that it wants to go this way that means this too much mass that way. So I want to move it back so I'm gonna Lose a little bit of screw you don't want to lose any too much so that it falls off and I'm gonna slide it So loosen a little and I'm gonna slide it slide it Here I'm doing it by eye tightening again It's much better. It's almost good So now I'm actually good enough that it's not rotating by itself I want to do a very fine adjustment. I want to sort of tap it back and forth and see that it's equally Easy It either way so now it's actually very good But I'm not quite done yet all I've done is I've slid it this way So that the center of mass is aligned basically on on this axis But it could still be off it could be off in this direction So to do that I will rotate the head 90 degree So no more testing the other axis and I let it go you can see Pond to rotate that way That means there's too much mass in the front not in the back So I'm not gonna do that right now um for this short video, but when that happens We don't have a screw to change that we can't slide this Back and forth this direction So what we're gonna need to do is we're gonna need to add counter weights in the back So you're gonna need to open the box and basically add weights to the back until it's all good So when you're done doing that you're gonna be in a situation where on both Directions it's gonna be good. That means in this direction when I let it go It's not gonna go forward or backward When I rotate it 90 degree Same thing. It's not gonna go this way that way So that's it for the deconation axis So then we're actually good with the deconation axis When you're done with that Basically you can speed the spin the deconation axis Anyway, you want and it's always going to be Balance it's never gonna want to go it's on way When you're done with that and you're done adding counter weights weights in the head The last thing to do is make sure the right ascension axis is Is balanced. So now I'm gonna do the opposite. I'm gonna lock the deconation axis And I'm gonna loosen the right ascension axis Losing the knob and then I let it go. You see it wants to go Head down and counterweight up. That means I have too much weight in the head No, I I could add counterweight, but it's actually much easier to slide the counterweight So I'm gonna unhook the counterweight And I'm gonna slide it back give it more leverage Until it's balanced. So I slide it back here So if I go too far see it goes down if I not far enough it goes up There is just a happy middle and again when I get close. I'm gonna tap it back and forth To check that it's equally hard Equally easy to go both ways. I'm doing a very fine adjustment here It's good. I tighten it. We're done. So now the whole unit is balanced on both axes So keep in mind that you're going to need you're gonna need to redo this every time you add weight If you add mass if you add something especially if it's something heavy If it's a small wire you don't need to worry about it But if it's something heavy you need to do this and the reason it's important to do this is if you don't if it's not balanced The mount may actually it will struggle and it may actually miss it You may not be able to point smoothly where where the unit needs to point So