hehehe you know me future proofing the idea
.
Im just desinging all the things i need to put together as in the side by side, and how much stress is going to be applied at the dovetail mount, so how strong the matierials need to be, currently taking into accound using a side by side set up, the 10", 450d body, EoN 70mm, Orion starshoot is coming out to about 170N ~ 17.3kgs. The thing is though you could have a 2kg weight to balance it all off. This is why i need to know the length, as it is a rigid body and you can depict and calculate by using free body diagrams and work out the moment around the central pivot point (where RA connects to DEC). So being a static system i have to counteract the 170N of force on the telescope end with the formula D*F=M in Nm where D= Distance, F= Force in Newtons (Mass * 9.8) and M = moment in Newton meters.
This should be able to with reasonable accuracy tell you how much counter weight you should need at any given moment.
*Ps, no i don't have msn at work dan
but i will wait to hear back from you tonight on the matter as i havn't picked the eq6 up yet. also looked at the price of the eq6 from telescope shop, and it jumped up $500
In the nick of time i says.