Balancing

We have been thinking of improving the balance of the rotator, especially for the cases that asymmetric instruments are mounted as this can cause problems if for some reason the telescope has to be powered-on when pointing some distance away from zenith. One of the problems was that the movable counterweight for various instruments already has to be set to the highest value where adding any extra weight to the rotator would require to add weight to the top part of the telescope to compensate. However, it was found that with the additions of weight to the telescope as part of the new TCS, the balance has changed and the movable counterweight settings are significantly lower, being close to the lowest value when no instrument is mounted. This now opens the possibility to add weight to the rotator and balance it properly.



Thomas Augusteijn 2008-01-11