EAA with EQ platform raiser fix

In the past, I have noticed that the axis of rotation of the platform seemed to be too high in the sky and the south foot of the platform would need to be brought up by multiple inches to line it up with the north celestial pole. But doing so would risk having the telescope tip over.

The builder of the EQ platform reached out earlier this year and told me he was working on a fix: a couple of parts to attach to the south end on the top and bottom pieces of the platform to raise the south bearing.

The raiser arrived just when we were traveling back to SF but every evening since had been overcast.

Finally tonight, we had clear skies, so I decided to give it a try. It took me about 90 minutes or so to attach it to the platform: it involved some drilling, careful alignment etc. It was tricky tightening nuts inside the 1" tube - only managed one nut for each L part.

I went out and setup everything. I also put new anti-slip tape on the right segment and the rotating axis.
I did a quick polar alignment (just center the telescope and platform and use plate solving to make sure it was pointing north) - I did not do the drift method or adjust the height of the raiser.

Initially it did not seem to work all that well. I did some stacks with 2-3 seconds sub frames.
When I pointed south hoping to image in Sagittarius, the drift got really bad. So I checked with a flash light and saw that the anti-slip tape had come unstuck from the rotating axis and was preventing the motion of the upper part. It had never happened before. With the raiser there is a lot more weight applied on the north end of the platform. I removed the tape from the axis.

From then on, it worked better. I started increasing the sub frame time: I started at 5s, but later went to 8s and ended at 10s. I kept the total exposure time similar to the ones I have done in the past (2-3 minutes) and so the results were not very different.

The whole telescope felt less steady though. With all the weight being on north side of the platform, the south end of the upper part of the platform came off its bearing several times when moving the telescope.

In conclusion, it works better than before for EAA. But one has to be careful moving the telescope.
Next, I should do a proper polar alignment (with height adjustment) and see how long I can make the subframes. Also, I will probably need longer stacks (and flat frames to address vignetting) to take images to the next level.