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Here's another image, before I painted it. The tops of the two L sections are simply bolted near to where the front scope-clamp is attached; I didn't even need to drill extra bolt holes, as there happened to be some extra ones in the bracket already. Before bolting the lower end of the short rod to the longer one, I set the scope horizontally and made sure that the long rod was a good 5mm clear of the tripod legs; then used a marker pen to mark the place where the 'attachment' hole needed drilling.
Then I put in my heaviest eyepiece (a 2" 30mm) and tipped the scope up into a vertical position. This done, it was just a matter of sliding my 1.25kg weight along the long rod until I'd found the 'balance point'; once again, using the marker pen to ensure the correct point before drilling the hole. Then I simply cut of the remaining length of aluminium rod.
Happily, I found that with the rods at an angle where they just clear the tripod legs, the counterweight happens to be in a perfect 'balance' position, no matter what altitude the instrument is pointed. How's that for luck?
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