Planning My Observatory - Feedback Wanted!

I constructed the suspended floor. I kept it seperate from the pier and the foundation to ensure no vibration on the pier.

Great work there Mike, you're a real credit to the amateur that goes out there and does it for him or herself! Can't wait to get over there for a (observing??) session!

Gosh, the pillar and chair look familiar :lol:
seriously though, great job Michael. Interesting that you placed the wedge at 45 degrees to the pillar, was that deliberate or just an astetic choice ??

Congratulations Michael! you did a fine job. With this permenent setup it will be an advantage to test out the tracking. From what I see in the photos the vertical threaded bars are certainly long enough to make adjustments. Was it that necessary to make them that long? Could this produce slight instability?

Eamonn A

Gosh, the pillar and chair look familiar :lol:
seriously though, great job Michael. Interesting that you placed the wedge at 45 degrees to the pillar, was that deliberate or just an astetic choice ??

Hmmm...only saw these last two messages now.

I was going to place the pillar roughly on a north-south line but thought it looked better this way. Although it's very hard to tell from the photo, it's at an angle of approx 25-30 degrees.

Congratulations Michael! you did a fine job. With this permenent setup it will be an advantage to test out the tracking. From what I see in the photos the vertical threaded bars are certainly long enough to make adjustments. Was it that necessary to make them that long? Could this produce slight instability?

Eamonn A

The bars were either available as a 200mm long bolt or as 1m long bars. I initially got the 200mm bolts but by the time you allow for the thickness of each plate of steel plus a bolt and washer on each side of each plate, it doesn't allow for as much of a seperation as I would have initially expected. You'll see in the next couple of photos what I did with these threaded bars.