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February 23, 2007

Build a Spring 'Counter Weight' for a Dobsonian Telescope

 

Spring counter weight

 

I am fortunate to have a 32 cm Dobson mounted Newtonian reflector telescope. After I added some heavy wide field eyepieces to my collection, I started this project with the goal of balancing the scope. I found it straight forward to build a working spring balance system, but also a little more subtle than at first glance.  You can find a short How-To, with analysis of the physics, a numerical model along with some photos and explanation of the system I built, here.