Okay, finally have it up on the equatorial mount.
You will notice that the CI-700 equatorial mount head is on a 10.5" tall aluminum tube. It wasn't pretty, but I managed to turn the interior to the required 5.54" inside diameter by putting an end mill in the drill press, and slowly turning the pipe so that the end mill got all parts. Yes, this isn't exactly how you are supposed to use a drill press. But it worked.
The lower elevation relative to the standard CI-700 (or even G-11) tripod means that it was a lot easier for my wife and I to pick the scope up and get it into the dovetail--and I won't need to be standing tippy-toe on a stepladder to get to the eyepiece, either. At the zenith, the eyepiece is 75 inches from the ground.
I still need to add the finderscope to the telescope. I'm a little torn as to whether to add it at the balance point, near the eyepiece, or closer to the mirror. Traditionally, finderscopes are near the eyepiece so that you can quickly move from finderscope to eyepiece. Adding it there would add a pound or two to the light end of the scope, requiring me to move the scope down slightly in the saddle--and I'm already on the edge of scraping the board to which the tube is mounted.
I knew that I was going to need to put a light shroud on the scope--but in spite of that, it works surprisingly well in daylight. Mirror collimation was a bit of a struggle--it is still possible that the tube structures that I am using don't provide enough stiffness. I don't like some of the creaking noises as I move the scope from position to position. We'll find out the next time the clouds clear out at night.
This is still a work in process; I'm learning a lot along the way.
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