My new Steel Pier....Finally

Hi All

Been a little busy during the not so dark times of the year building my Pier.

I designed my own pier but then got quoted ridiculous amounts of money to have it made, so fortunately Altair-Astro in the UK have one very similar to my design, so I opted for that.

I dug a hole of 3ft deep, 14" Wide, once this was done, I pushed 2m lengths of 10mm reinforced bar down into the hole to the ground below the hole, enough so that the bars are free standing in the hole......then came the concrete.

I left the concrete to cure for 30 days before putting the pier on, but it's finally done, right in time to start imaging again. Only this time I'll be using my Atik 383L+ with my SX Filterwheel.

Here's some pictures of the pier and since I've now finished the deck around the pier. I did some guide tests whilst kicking the pier, and the guide graph didn't even spike, so I am extremely happy with how things have turned out.


Pier.jpg

I'm in the process of building my power system so that I don't have to keep bringing the battery gear out though

Simon

Not sure why images won't attach to the post, I've brought them down to a lower file size too

Here they are anyway

Pier: www.flickr.com/photos/30345959@N08/9416598083/

Pier + Mount + Scope : www.flickr.com/photos/30345959@N08/9416597479/

With the Deck : www.flickr.com/photos/30345959@N08/9419365376/

Nice!

I watched a few videos about the optimal design and installation of a pier. There are some *strong* opinions - as with many things in amateur astronomy. This one (in two parts) sticks out as someone who sounds very competent but has an awful lot of [citation needed]:





He claims that he doesn't want to help the competition by giving out too much information but that to me sounds like a cop-out. One can't make the kinds of claims that he does, expect 475 quid for a pier (EQ6 version), and not show the data from comparative tests.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting and hopefully not too far off topic.

That looks fantastic - very solid.

Are you planning on bringing the mount and scope inside after each imaging session?

I came across these covers a few months ago and found them to be absolutely excellent, saves me so much time on set up. It's been well tested here the last few weeks with 30deg heat one day and thunder storms the next and everything underneath is perfect.

www.telegizmos.com/365%20sizes%20and%20prices%20page%202.htm

The Scope yes...the mount no

The mount is already perfectly drift aligned, so that will save me a lot of time during imaging sessions, plus the fact that the mount will be "Parked" after every imaging session so I might actually start recording Periodic Error to utilise PEC on the mount. I'll also then move over to controlling the mount entirely by Software as opposed to the hand controller

I also got one of these for the mount and Pier

www.green-witch.com/acatalog/Cases_and_Bags.html