Concrete and getting old.

[ollypenrice]

Where's all my strength gone? Blimey, I had to split this base into two parts because I hadn't the strength to do it on one. (OK I can't get the trailer with the ballast very close to the job but even so...

If you are some way off sixty you have it all to come! )

So what next? The base is 2M square so I think I'll build a breeze block affair to the level of the bank behind and then have a roof-and-shallow-sides that run off in that direction. It can house an imaging mount and, at a squeeze, serve as visual as well with a short instrument. The warm room for Yves' setup is just nearby out of the picture.

I'm not one for huge buried piers and have never had any issues with surface mounted ones so I didn't sink a pier hole. Besides this landscape is all buried boulders and getting down into it is near impossible.

Olly

[Stephen]

A good start How much land do you have there? From various threads I think you have quite a number of installations now?

[ollypenrice]

Hi Stephen, by local standards I don't have all that much. The tree in the pic obscures Polaris from the high ground so, although I have room for two or three scopes up there, I haven't colonized it for this reason.

At the moment I have a full roll off for the Tak mount, the warm room with rolling roof for the 14 inch Yvesmobile (soon to go tandem), a full roll off for the 20 inch, the new roll-off and four guest instrument places.

One thing I could do on the high ground, though, is have a permanent solar observatory. I'd put the Lunt and a white light/Hershel wedge instrument on one mount up there. Designing a solar observatory would be fun. The priorities would be;

Visual access for the scope to be pointing from East to South West.

Some shade built in. (It gets hot here...)

A computer room or roomlet dark enough to see the screen for solar imaging.

Pencil and paper time...

Olly

[garethmob]

i guess olly in the main thread you dont actually have much land, you just need the best circumstances on where the land is, id love a 13foot by 10foot garden over a 12 acre of land

that solar obv sounds really really good. i was thinking of somthing that was a similar design of the shutter door but in a dome shape, so the whole thing rolled circular back into a small "warm (or would it be cold?) room. mmm you given me ideas now lol another project i never actually finish?

[JamesF]

Be fair to yourself, Olly. You're probably not far shy of a tonne and a half of concrete there and if you're shovelling and mixing yourself too, that's a lot of hard work.

James

[Macavity]

Looks fine to me. <G> Thinking in UK (Welsh anyway) terms: If there's a SLOPE: "A River runs through it"?

(We seem to be "into" Movie Themes!). Envying not just your Sun, but the absence of (rain) water...

[iwatkins]

Still needs a hot tub Olly

[swamp thing]

I'm not one for huge buried piers and have never had any issues with surface mounted ones so I didn't sink a pier hole. Besides this landscape is all buried boulders and getting down into it is near impossible.

As a proffesional builder I completely agree Olly.

You cannot dampen vibration with reinforced concrete, and you certainly don't need it to support the weight of most amateur kit.

The trick is to isolate the scope from the ground using dampening gaskets, not pouring masses of concrete on and around rebar.

Good luck with the build.

[sologuitarist61]

Know what you mean Ollie I'm 65 and sudden cannot lift what I did before. It doesn't just creep up on you - one day you can do it and then next you can't. Not looking forward to laying the base of my observatory either

[Gina]

As a proffesional builder I completely agree Olly.

You cannot dampen vibration with reinforced concrete, and you certainly don't need it to support the weight of most amateur kit.

The trick is to isolate the scope from the ground using dampening gaskets, not pouring masses of concrete on and around rebar.

Good luck with the build.

Now you tell me I could have saved a lot of effort!

[ollypenrice]

Now you tell me I could have saved a lot of effort!

Well, I've been posting this opinion for a long time! Think of poor old Herstmonceux where they discovered that the entire piece of land on which they built rose and sank with the tides.

Olly

[Digz]

As a proffesional builder I completely agree Olly.

You cannot dampen vibration with reinforced concrete, and you certainly don't need it to support the weight of most amateur kit.

The trick is to isolate the scope from the ground using dampening gaskets, not pouring masses of concrete on and around rebar.

Good luck with the build.

A very interesting point, which I haven't thought about until now.

[StevieDvd]

As a proffesional builder I completely agree Olly.

You cannot dampen vibration with reinforced concrete, and you certainly don't need it to support the weight of most amateur kit.

The trick is to isolate the scope from the ground using dampening gaskets, not pouring masses of concrete on and around rebar.

Good luck with the build.

How does that go then, what would a typical setup for a pier be with dampening gaskets (whatever they are)?

[Pug]

Hate to rub it in Olly, but a couple off years ago I was working with a 68yr old laying 16 tons of screed a day, he used go home in better shape than me! (I'm 44)

[swamp thing]

You could use neoprene bearing gaskets. These are specifically designed to combat vibration. These are highly compression resistant (we are talking much higher weights than any amateur owned kit).

These can be placed between a regular pier base and the oversite concrete. This would negate the need for a separate pier foundation with all that rebar and digging.

You could use cork gaskets on the bolts to hold the pier down. Jobs a good un.

This is just one way of solving it there are others.

[Digz]

I think a good comparable is high rise buildings built in zones prone to tremors and earth quakes - vibrations become quickly dampened out.

[Gina]

Very interesting

[JamesF]

Gina's case is different though as she doesn't have oversite concrete, so there's nothing to which the pier can be bolted.

James

[JamesF]

I think a good comparable is high rise buildings built in zones prone to tremors and earth quakes - vibrations become quickly dampened out.

I'm unconvinced

My understanding is that tall buildings in earthquake zones are built so that they can move (and in fact they must), but they tend to dampen the movement so it can't become self-reinforcing. With a pier you're after something as rigid as possible that completely damps vibration as fast as possible.

James

[nightvision]

You are not alone Olly I have noticed this also, recently cleared and laid a large driveway (after years of office work), involved moving tonnes of materials and mixing concrete. Took me several days to build up my strength (really thought I wasn't going to be up to it). I figured out that my strength fades faster during sedentary periods than it use to so if I keep doing physical things I retain more of it.

I think the trad pier build (big buried block) is more about stability than vibration isolation. I have noticed vibrations from occasional buses hitting a pot hole in a nearby road some 100 yards from my house, the bathroom mirror will rattle just little so isolation is definitely on the list of new pier characteristics, Sorbathane would be the best but way too expensive.

Tony

[Digz]

I'm unconvinced

My understanding is that tall buildings in earthquake zones are built so that they can move (and in fact they must), but they tend to dampen the movement so it can't become self-reinforcing. With a pier you're after something as rigid as possible that completely damps vibration as fast as possible.

James

When you put it like that......

[swamp thing]

That's the whole point James completely rigid doesn't dampen vibrations the harder you knock up concrete and the more rebar is placed in it. The more it behaves like a tuning fork when you touch that pier. When someone is using a pneumatic drill on concrete you can feel it metres away through your feet. Move onto some soft earth and drill near your feet and you'll feel nothing.

That is how vibration dampening works soft materials not hard.

[ollypenrice]

I just stand my home made steel piers on the concrete and bolt them to it. Do you see a problem in the pictures taken here? Yves' 35cm ODK with FL of 2.4 metres stands on the pads that come with the Mesu Mount 200. It"s the ultimate non-issue for me.

Mind you, I live at the end of the tarmac road and only the farmer's van ever goes past. That's about 200 metres away as well, and never at night... I'm a long way from any traffic or industry but something hissed at me from out of a hole, today. Very curious about that!

Olly

[nytecam]

I enjoyed that discussion:hello2:

[garethmob]

Ssssssssnake?

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