Where to place the Pier

[Sputnik]

Total beginner here. Have had a very nice scope sitting in a room for yonks. It's a Vixen sphinx mount. Finally got around to getting an obs.

Thing is, in the obs WHERE abouts do you put the pier? It's going to be a circular obs.

Have a DIY hubs who will make the pier, got loads of info from here on how etc., but not seen where.

Is it placed in the centre? Offset? Or what?

[Ant]

I'd go for the centre. Just make sure that the scope will be happy and not get to close to the side of the Obs in all conceivable positions...

Ant

[Sputnik]

Hi, thanks, it's 2.7 m or 9ft I'm going to have to draw a chalk circle on the floor and see how the telescope moves in it.

Buy the time the nights draw in i should be set up.

[Sputnik]

'By' even.

[mattifor]

I have a Pulsar 2.7m OBS.

Initaly I put my pier dead center of the obs and was operating my OO Europa 250 on a Vixen SXW mount on a fixed pier all worked well.

I later upgraded to a MEADE LX200RGPS 10" & Meade super Wedge on a raising pier, because the wedge protrudes forwards I found that I had to move the pier 12" to the north so the scope remained in the center of the OBS.

hope this helps

[Bizibilder]

Hi SPutnik - Do you have a room that is about the same size as your proposed observatory? (When testing out mine I used the garden shed!). The idea is to put the scope in a "3D" space and then see how it fits (If you see what I mean). It is very difficult to imagine what things are really like with just a mark on the ground. In my case I blocked off part of the shed with an old sheet to get a "space" that was just the right size. This helped a lot and I felt confident that everything would fit when building the actual obsy.

Don't forget you need quite a bit of room around the scope for yourself!!!

Hope this helps