Bolsover pier

[geppetto]

As posted elsewhere, Ive moved me scoping place and have been rebuilding the pier.

Here it is concreted deep into the base that my green house used to sit on.

The pier is made of 4x4 timber and at only 34" high, is extremely rigid

Just been making the mount blocks out of 1.5" ply.

The HEQ5 sits in a 60mm hole cut halfway through the top block and

is held in by a central 10mm bolt with wingnut.

The blocks are seperated (to get at the 10mm wing nut) and are held at each

corner by 12mm studding, nuts and washers.

The corners nuts are adjustable to get the mount blocks dead level.

All very rigid so far and after a trial tonight (hopefully) if all is well, I will

give the whole thing a protective coat or three of paint.

[Greg]

Looks good phil,

Is that one of those Ro Ro sheds you'll be using as an observatory, if so where did you get it from..

I never thought of wood as a pier...

[Kai]

Wow a Ecco friendly Astro Pier

There could be a market for these you know

Anyhoo it looks the bizz Phil

[geppetto]

Greg

The shed is a Keter sp? jumbo shed, got it from Homebase.

Won't be converting it to an obsy just yet as it's more use holding

all my gear but the fact that you can mod it affected my choice of sheds.

Nowt wrong with wood for a pier although a chunk of 6x6 gate post or a length

of tree trunk would be better for heavy rigs.

The proof is how a car comes off after crashing into a tree :shock:(don't try this at home)

[geppetto]

Ready for tonight to do a drift align (fingers crossed)

Good news is, the mount vibration stops in under 2 seconds after

having given the post a swift kick

[GazOC]

How does the mount adjust in azimuth Phil?

[geppetto]

How does the mount adjust in azimuth Phil?

Forgot to mention that as I did it after the pictures...

It's a piece of 10mm studding ground flatish on two sides

and sunk into the top ply block between the two mount AZ bolts as a stop to adjust against

[GazOC]

Great. I figured you wouldn't have fotgot!

[GordonCopestake]

Looks pretty good Phil! Great work.

[barkis]

Wood is a great medium to use for a mounting. I once used H girder pieces welded together to form a frame for both declination and Ra Pillar block bearings. It was as solid as a rock, or so I thought. Whilst I was viewing through farly high power Eyepieces, the image would blur, and only clear when I touched the focuser to refocus. The problem was the structure was ringing at the same frequency as the RA motor/ gearbox, which was driving the worm gear. The motor was a mains via inverter, synchronous motor. I thought of attaching another one, and tuning it to counteract the other one, and cancel out the vibration. I packed the girder superstructure with concrete instead, thinking it would be a better option. It did not eliminate it altogether. My point in rambling on about this, is, you would not get this issue with wood.

Ron.

[geppetto]

Just been modding some gear to fit the new pier and make

it truly multi tasking.

This one shows my motor driven barn door tracker fitted on top.

Good for over 6 minutes widefield camera shots.

This one shows my ALT/AZ mount on top.

This device has setting circles and I use it mainly for shooting predicted

Iridium flares and for finding planets in the daytime (beware of the sun if you do this)

Both devices can carry my camera or my 70mm mini mac scope with camera.

[SteelRat]

S'lookin real nice there Phil - good work. Wood stuff's cool too 8)

[geppetto]

New pier is finished, added a battery holder box today.

Also, between the pier and three street lights, I have put up a simple structure

which will support tomato and pepper plants in the summer.

It's main purpose is to hold a grab n' go light shield courtesy of the idea pinched

from Steelrat 8)

The shield top is just over 7' high but can be lowered a bit if needed..

Very pleased all round, should be a nice comfy place to observe from this summer

[GazOC]

That looks great Phil, I'll be picking your brains over the summer when I start mine. Touch wood!

[MartinB]

Nice job Philip

[dazza1639]

Nice one Phil.

How do you locate the mount in the same place each time? Or do you have to drift align each session?

Darren

[geppetto]

How do you locate the mount in the same place each time

Drift aligned it the other night and then put markers on top

of the mount block to show where to put the mount head next session.

Much better than trying to get a tripod back in the same place 8)

[Jaffa007]

Quality bit of woodwork there Phil! And the pier is so versitial, top marks.

Really like the light shield..... it's given me an idea 8)

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

You're going to have a lot of fun with that Phil. Great build.

Captain Chaos

[SteelRat]

Heheheh - great looking pier setup Phil 8) nice light shield too Good stuff matey.

[GordonCopestake]

Great solution Phil! I really like that

[Chubster]

Phil you got a close up with the azimuth adjustment stud attached ? And what is that made from ?

[geppetto]

Chubs

It's just a short length of studding (10mm I think) screwed into

the top block in exactly the same place as the stud in the origional

mount is.

Needn't be anything fancy as long as it's strong enough to take being

pushed by the AZ adjustment bolts