Permanent pillar setup in garden

[tramsden]

Hi.

I dont have a large garden but I'd like to erect some sort of fixed pillar for stability and quicker set up of my HEQ5 mount. It would be great to not have mess around trying to level the tripod on uneven ground everytime and have the mount just drop into polar alignment.

I did think about putting in a concrete pier but as I said it's a small garden and the pier would be in the middle and would obviously cause problems later if I moved or decided to up size the mount.

So I was thinking about digging a hole in the lawn, pouring in concrete, levelling it and then securing a skywatcher or similar pillar to the area.

As anyone else done the same?

Any tips to hole size and general thoughts about my plans would be welcome.

Tony

[Black Knight]

Have you had a good look around the observatory DIY board? You will probably get a lot of ideas on piers there.

DIY Observatories - Stargazers Lounge

[Bizibilder]

That's the regular way of doing things - the concrete needs to be at least a 2x2x2 foot cube, or bigger, if you can manage. If you are on "soft" ground then 3x3x3 is better. You can buy a pier or have one made by your local steel fabricator to your own design. As blacknight says there are lots of threads on the DIY board or in various sites that you can find links to in members signatures.