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DIY Pier and mount base


PhilPassmore

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Hi everyone. I am an absolutely inveterate tinkerer, fiddler, maker and breaker (with hopefully not too much of the last).

I only came into astronomy properly about 6-9 months ago, with the acquisition of a horrible Tasco 4 1/2 inch reflector

with some dreadful little 0.9 inch eyepieces. However, catching my very first glimpse of a very fuzzy blob that was slightly

less than circular, and I confidently decided actually WAS Saturn.

Things have latterly improved on the equipment front, and I hope that I don't bore the community too much by posting

what will probably be mostly pictures and some little description of things that I have made or modified.

This posting is to show the pier I have made to mount my EQ5 Goto mount onto.

Currently I am viewing from a raised wooden deck on the back of the house, that has a pretty good view of the southern sky.

However, being raised and wood, vibration posed a big problem, with the slightest movement while tripod mounted

, setting the view rocking and roling all over the place.

My solution to that, was to switch to a pier base, attached to a concrete pillar, cast in some plastic drainpipe and set

into the underlaying concrete yard surface. The pillar comes up to just below the deck surface, and has three threaded

rods set into it that allow a reasonably easy and quick means of mounting the pier in a fairly accurately repeatable

position, meaning the mount doesn't have to be polar aligned every time I want to use it.

The pier was made from aluminium rather than steel, with a circular central tube, and three sort of outrigger

rectangular box sections around the outside of the round tube. I chose aluminium because mostly it was what I had laying around

but also because it would be a little lighter to mount and dismount. This latter benefit was pretty much lost when

I decided to fill the central round part of the pier with concrete to stiffen and dampen resonances. I an passable at aluminium

welding with a decent TIG welder I bought to do a van to Camper conversion during lockdown.The pier was made at a height that would

provide comfortable general viewing, but I also made an extra extension piece that adds enough to make overhead viewing through a long

refractor, reasonably comfortable. The base to actually mount the EQ mount onto required some lathe work ( I am blessed, having a Myford

ML7 down in the shed). This base has three thumb screws to allow accurate leveling of the whole mount assembly.

I hope this fits in with the purpose of the forum section, and I would welcome a little feedback as to whether I should post some

of the other stuff I have done. Many thanks, Phil

 

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Very nice 👌 Is the concrete in the cylinder section enough to dampen any vibration for visual? Reason I ask is that I used to have a concrete pier with an HEQ5 extension tube on top which looks like it would be a very similar height to yours, I had to be very careful when doing visual stuff, no challenges at all using a camera.

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It certainly helps to dampen and stiffen things. Originally I only used the rectangular section pieces, but ran threaded rods down inside each box, and tightened into tension. Not actually sure the rods helped very much, I think all it did was change the resonant frequency. So in order to stiffen, I added the round section AND the concrete fill. Actually I think the concrete pile wobbles a bit too, so I am looking at adding three steel wires from the top of the column/bottom of the pier down to the concrete floor, a bit like tent guy ropes, and a turbuckle to tension them.

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