Excuse Me Dumb!
After all these years of only occasional sky-watching, I am still wondering is there a "best" position (rotation) of my Newtonian in it's mount? I have not found an ideal tube position, nor really an ideal height for my EQ mount. Any "rule-of-thumb", or is it simply a fact of life that you need to play with this (depending on my looking south, north, up etc!)
When I used to have a Newt mounted on a GEM I had exactly the same problems. The only "best" position I found was to have the eyepiece pointing straight out to the side when in the home position. This will usually ensure that the eyepiece won't point to the ground, but that is about it. In some positions you will still need a flip top head and others you will need to lean out over the top of the tube without moving it.
I found Antares (Canada?) make rings, but never got around to buying them. Excellent quality roller bearings, but not very cheap. Otherwise I have seen some DIY ideas using garden hose to hold the tube and something to loosen it. Whatever ideas you try, you would need to make sure the tube doesn't slide out!
Thankyou all, I will give the rings a look! Another dumb question... what is "home" position?
