TeleVue Small Refractor Balance Aid

The smaller TeleVue refractors are compact and light in weight. There is not much tube length available to slide the mounting ring fore and aft to balance the weight of heavy accessories. Some scopes (for example, the Pronto, TV-76, TV-85, etc.) can become tail heavy when used with a 2" diagonal and one of the heavier TeleVue eyepiece (such as the 31mm Nagler, 35mm Panoptic, etc.). These eyepieces can weigh more than a third that of the scope itself. The scopes can also become tail heavy when used with many 35mm camera bodies.

This TeleVue telescope balance aid is a machined and anodized aluminum plate that can be used to move the telescope balance point forward by about 2.5" to better balance a tail-heavy TeleVue scope. It is designed for use with a standard TeleVue telescope ring mount and a TeleVue Panoramic or Gibraltar mount. It can also work with a conventional photo tripod, although the single mounting bolt of a photo tripod does not provide as rigid a connection as the two bolts used with a TeleVue ring mount.

The balance aid plate attaches to the two mounting holes in the scope ring mount, using the supplied Allen-head bolts and Allen wrench. The end of the balance aid with the long studs and wing nuts should be toward the diagonal end of the scope. The long studs are slipped into the two holes in the Panoramic and Gibraltar mount cradles and held in place with the supplied wing nuts. This arrangement moves the ring mount and scope forward of the mount cradle, better balancing the weight of heavy eyepiece or camera at the rear.

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