Telescope Pier

Telescope Pier

Before building this telescope pier, I used to lug my Celestar 8 with the wedgepod to the backyard. However, after filling the wedgepod legs with sand to improve its stability, the whole setup became too heavy to be lugged around with ease.

After hearing the horror stories of getting hernia by lifting BIG telescopes, I started carrying the telescope and the wedgepod separately to the backyard.

I subsequently made a wheeley-bar for pushing the whole telescope setup around. Unfortunately, the wheeley-bar was too wide to pass through the door to the backyard.

So, I decided a pier in the backyard would be the best solution, not to mention the bonus of eliminating the need to do polar alignment every time.

For various reasons I wanted a pier which is not TOO permanent and can be removed easily if I do not like it. After seeing Bill Arnett's A Temporary Pier, I decided to make a similar timber telescope pier. The design of my mounting plates is similar to the one in the Guido Pasi Pier.

I ordered a Celestron Standard C8 Wedge (same as the one on Celestar 8 Deluxe) so that the wedgepod can remain operational for field trips.

So far I am very satisfied with the timber telescope pier. It is at least as stable as the wedgepod (if not better) and is ready-to-use all the time.

Click on the thumbnails below to see larger pictures.

		I purchased a 6 metre long, 9cm x 9cm untreated timber as material. The timber was cut into four 1.5 metre pieces. An electric planer was used to smooth out the rough surfaces.
		The four pieces of timber were glued together using construction adhesive.
		The pier was designed to be same height as the Celestron Wedgepod (about 92cm / 36"). Excess length of the pier had to be cut off because the hole I dug was not very deep.
		To improve the stability of the pier, I bolted it to a concrete slab. The exposed bolts and gaps were sealed with silicon sealant before the whole thing is covered with several coats of paint.
		I poured a whole bag of sand in the hole to level it before placing the pier. The hole was then filled with the original clay/soil and compacted firmly. No pier movement was detected after one week.
		Two pieces of plywood were glued to form the bottom mounting plate. To minimise flexing, the mounting plates were made as small as possible. The bottom plate was drilled and painted before attaching to the pier with screws and construction adhesive.
		The top four corners of the pier were chopped to accommodate the bolts.
		The top mounting plate is similar to the bottom plate. The additional smaller plywood is to raise the wedge so that the bolts do not block it from rotating.
		The top mounting plate installed on the pier. The wedge is then mounted roughly facing south celestial pole.
		A closeup view of the mounting plates.
		The wedge is mounted with the centre bolt only. This is because the remaining three holes cannot be drilled until the wedge is rougly polar aligned.
		Telescope temporarily mounted to perform polar alignment. Three additional holes were then drilled on the top mounting plate for securing the wedge.
		The telescope securely mounted on the pier and ready for action!

Amateur Astronomy