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Budget Pier for un DIY people

matt-c

By matt-c
in DIY Observatories

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matt-c

matt-c

Posted
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Hi everyone, I was given the green light by my partner around Christmas time (a little bit late with this post) to build a pier in our garden :grin:  but it had to be cheap and it had to not interfere with the garden currently in the process of being destroyed by my twin 2 year old girls.

Before I go any further I am terrible at DIY....like I cant saw a straight line and I didn't even own a tape measure or a hammer at the time.

Since I only use a skytracker v2 + dslr lenses or a grab and go refractor I realised I could get away with a cheap build.

I started by digging a hole approximately 1m deep which actually took about 20mins which given id planned a full day was slightly anti climatic.

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I then got a 110mm by 3m soil pipe  and trimmed it down to a size I felt was a good height for me to reach.

I also put a few big pieces of scrap wood in the tube and hammered large nails into to add as a kind of anchor.

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At this point I had a silly idea to use and old lense cap from my skymax scope and place 3x 1 meter long steel rods into, the added bonus of the cap was it gave it a really smooth finish.

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I used post crete to fix it in and it seems to have done a real good job up to now, again terrible at diy so not sure if its the right stuff only time will tell.

Next I needed some way to mount my setup up to it :huh: luckily I have a friend who works for a door manufacturing company and he managed to get me 5x metal plates for the price of a pint :grin:

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it was then a case of mounting the base plates and putting bolts in the corners to adjust the top plates to make it level.....surprisingly I didn't need to do anything.

Then a quick spray with paint and an overgrown inactive period of astrophotography  later its time to use it again.

This full thing cost me about £40-50 (and a pint) due to me having a few bits and pieces donated by friends, its no eq8 but its way better than a tripod I could buy for that amount (I can actually sit on it :shocked: ) and has improved my exposure time a ridiculous amount, who'd have thought :tongue:

so anyone who is debating if they should do it, if I can you can.......also remove the metal plates and it can become a bird bath :evil:

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matt-c

matt-c

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Looks quite sound for you're wide field setup... Cost effective!! How's it performing??

Its still like a rock mate I can really push my subs until they wash out with LP.

I foolishly mounted a celestron travelscope 70mm just to check what it can hold as this was a no go on my tripod but I can get a pretty decent 5min sub on the pier.

awful picture and poorly processed but just to show how sturdy it was, this was a pretty windy night.

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