Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro Azimuth Altitude polar alignment bolt markers

thingiverse

I may pretty these up later but they should work as is.Simple set of snap on spacer rings to fairly accurately mark your existing polar alignment if you need to temporarily move/remove your mount without having to spend a long time recreating your polar alignment after putting it back on the tripod. Wind the bolts back in to the depths marked by the spacers when putting the mount back on the tripod and hopefully you'll be back to pretty close to the same polar alignment as your last calibration.I designed this to work with my Skywatcher EQ6-R Pro but it may work for similar mounts like the HEQ5's etc that may have the same size bolts (otherwise you could scale the parts in the X/Y to match).For these to work effectively - ONLY remove the mount from the tripod base when using them. If you move the tripod legs, you'll need a separate way to record where the tripod was and its orientation to match the mounts orientation and elevation. I would only use these rings if you were taking the mount off the tripod but leaving the tripod (or pier) in place as it was such as if you are removing your mount to store it for winter.There are two parts in the model, the rear Azimuth bolt is a larger diameter to the 3 front bolts to there are two sized parts to accomodate.INSTRUCTIONSMeasure the length of each of the four alignment bolts between the body of the mount and the inside of the bolt head. For the rear azimuth bolt, just measure to the exposed length of thread between the spring loaded bolt handle and back of the mount. (I may fix this to use the adjustment handle head later)Duplicate the smaller spacer 3 times (2x for azimuth, 1x for front altitude).Resize the Z height to match the lengths on each of the 4 bolts measured. I took 0.01mm off each of mine just to make it easier to slip them on.Print and snap them onto your mount bolts to mark their relative positions to each other.DIMENSIONS (if you need to rescale/remix to match a different mount)Smaller spacer - X 13.5 mm, Y 15mm, inner diameter to suit 11.5-12mm bolt.Larger spacer - X 17.57mm, Y 18.97mm, inner diameter to suit 15mm bolt.