First things first...Don't Panic
The first time I setup my EQ6 I pointed it the wrong way
But seriously, it might seem hard the first time you do it, but with practice it will become easier.
Much of the talk from the Northern Hemisphere about setting it up will hold true, with the exception of seeing Polaris through the polar scope, and that you need to point it south rather than north. Polaris was a big help when I lived up north, when I first got my mount, but since I've been here I've not looked through the polar scope once. The stars in Octans are too faint to see through it with my eyes.
So I start off by using a compass to point the tripod south, the side with the peg should be south. Remember that magnetic south and true south are not the same, so be sure to compensate for this - I use an app on my phone, for better or worse!
I moved the peg from the factory position to the side over the leg to make it easier to point. Then level the tripod well, keeping in mind this may alter the direction slightly...so to minimise this I start off with the legs extended so that the top of the tripod is level by eye, and then orient south. If you have a bubble level on the mount, don't trust it. Use a proper level.
Once the tripod is level and fairly accurately pointing south, put the mount on the tripod and secure it with the vertical bolt underneath. Familiarise yourself with how the altitude and azimuth bolts work in daylight. The latitude scale on the mount may or may not be close to reality...mine is at least half a degree out, but lacks resolution to be useful. I use another app on my phone that acts as an inclinometer, but a physical one would work at least as good. With the counterweight bar extended, use the inclinometer to measure (from the vertical) and adjust your altitude bolts to match your latitude.
With the altitude and azimuth bolts secured, ensure all the clutch levers are tight and add your counterweights. Make sure you do this before you add your scope! Double check the clutches are secured before adding your scope. Then slide the dovetail rail of your scope into the puck and secure it.
It's then important to balance your scope, but there's no easy way to do this other than trial and error. The important thing to remember here is NEVER release a clutch without having hold of your scope with the other hand (or another person even)... Otherwise your precious scope could swing around and crash into the tripod or worse. Add the accessories you think you will use to the scope, such as a diagonal and an average weighted eyepiece, a dew shield if you will use one (SCTs especially).
Start off by balancing in RA... RA is the direction where the chunky bit of the mount moves. Declination is the direction where only the puck (and a scope when on it) spins.
So grab hold of your scope, release the RA clutch and swing around by 90 degrees so that the counterweight bar is more or less level. Get a feel for which end is heavier, the scope end or the counterweight end. If it is scope heavy, secure the clutch(!) and then move the counterweight away from the scope a little more. Release the clutch and check the balance again. When checking balance, start off from the level, but also rotate away from level so the counterweights go lower, towards the ground. A balance point is where a nudge of the scope (or counterweight) results in movement followed by coming to rest quickly, and not being drawn one way or another by gravity.
With the scope balanced in RA, you can now balance in Dec. This is a little more tricky. With the counterweight bar at the level (like above), grab your scope and release the Dec clutch. If it is not balanced, you will immediately feel it pull in one direction or another. To balance it in Dec you will need to move it in the puck. I'm not very brave when it comes to this, so I secure the Dec clutch and return RA to the home position before attempting to release the puck and slide the scope. If the scope was front heavy, move it back slightly. If it was back heavy, move it forward slightly. Then move RA back to where the counterweight is level (secure the clutch) and then grab your scope and release the Dec clutch and see what happens. Then repeat the process until you are balanced in Dec.
Balancing your scope in Declination will depend on how the weight is distributed in the scope...for example, a refractor can be fairly evenly distributed or even front heavy, whereas an SCT or Newtonian are usually back heavy.
Having balanced in Dec, go back and check you still have balance in RA and adjust as necessary, as it may have changed.
That's pretty much all you can do in daylight, but do familiarise yourself with the clutches and bolts as you will most likely need to adjust the bolts in the dark. Actually, another thing you can do in daylight (although I would suggest you do this after sunset, and not pointing near any reflective surfaces such as windows...) is to align your finder scope and the main scope. Aim at a distant object and ensure they are aligned as the more accurately this is done the less pain you will feel when you are doing your star alignment in the dark...
Anyhow, that's how I setup my mount, but I'm sure other folk will have suggestions as to how to improve your (and my!) mount setup.
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but I see what you mean, it does focus the majority of the weight pretty much on the puck rather than away from it which acts as leverage. I don't imagine I'd have any hair left if I tried a newt...
