pier mount question

[Gazer914]

hi guys just wanted to ask a few questions, am seriously thinking of putting in a perminat mount as i only have a small garden and want to have either a small shed or something so i can leave the mount setup.

ive looked at the pier mounts that are available for my mount and scope and am probably looking at around £600-£700 for the pier to be safe for extras that are needed, not sure for other things yet. http://www.altairastro.com/product.php?productid=16162

http://i1219.photobucket.com/albums/dd429/ronan120/Telescope/DSCF7078.jpg (just a quick pic to show roughly the size of the garden)

what im after finding out is once the pier is in place will there have to be a star alignment done each time or will the mount be ok just going from start position? the mount i have is the HEQ5 Pro synscan.

one of the problems i have is a lot of LP which im going get a eos clip filter hopefully that will help with that as have already been on to the council to see if the could shade the 2 street lights that are the cause of the problem but still havent heard anything back yet.

anyway this is going to be an on going project that may take a while lol

[The Sailor]

Hi Gazer, regarding the alignment, with my mount on a pier I just do a 1 star but not to say you should not do a 3 star now and again. On the subject of the pier, why not a concrete one, once you dig the foundations it will still be solid and less expensive.

Jim

[Steve Ward]

You'll have to align the mount for GoTo each time as the time /date will be different.

Polar alignment will only need doing once though.

[Bizibilder]

One advantage of a pier is that it is worth getting your alignment spot-on as the mount will retain its alignment over quite a period of time. Then a 1-star align should be good enough and only takes a few seconds - hit "slew to target" and wait for the scope to stop, undo the clutches and centre the object, tighten the clutches and you are aligned. That way you dont have to reset the Home position perfectly every time.

By the way - if you have a decent local "steel fabricator" (the folks who make fire escapes, railings etc) you may be able to get one made to measure for quite a lot less than the cost of the commercial version.