East heavy
East heavy position for testing on the Ra axis is counterweight facing East, OTA facing west as you stand behind the mount looking South
From perfect balance in RA , with RA clutch unlocked , just move the bottom counterweight down the shaft about 5mm at a time until you notice the Ra axis starts to drop. It’s more difficult if you have a slightly stiff Ra axis like one of my EQ6-R mounts. It only has to be slightly east heavy.
I regards to fitting a Losmandy bar or other suitable dovetail bar to the top of the tube rings , you have to be careful not to tighten the fixing bolts ( I think they are M8 ) too much or you can strip the internal threads in the tube rings, the tube rings are only alloy not steel
Also the internal threads are only about 12mm deep too so you need the right depth screw or alternatively use some washers as spacers etc... I’m sure you will work it out. Tighten firm but not rock tight !!
If your getting perfect Star shape at 60 sec or even better , 80 sec , then your PA should be OK
Under guiding your Ra pulses or corrections will always be up down but not necessarily continuous ( unless your chasing the seeing in bad conditions where it is saw toothing badly )
Your Dec pulses or corrections will be minimal and sometimes only one way as the Dec motor is rarely on
When dithering you usually see the Dec pulses or corrections spike a bit
Your individual guiding numbers usually give you a good idea how your tracking
Also check for PE ( periodic error ) in your guiding where you see an unusually large spike or excursion in Ra every so often ( sometimes every sub or second sub ) this can cause slanted or eggy stars as well
You can PEC train your mount to minimise this affect but you cannot totally remove it , it mechanical , usually found in mass produced lower end mounts like ours
Also check Dec backlash in your mount. In PHD2 you use the Guiding Assistant to test this , it switches off guiding for 2 or 3 minutes and looks how the mount behaves when tracking and when asked to move back to the guide Star lock position
Once completed , it gives you a table of data including polar alignment and Dec backlash
A Dec backlash of under 500ms on these mounts is acceptable
Below is a link to the dovetail bar I used for my Orion 60mm guidescope and ZWO guide camera mounted on the tube rings of my 8” f5 GSO Bintel newt
https://www.bintel.com.au/product/lo...plate-14-inch/
Cheers
Martin
