Hi there,
I'm newly registrated here although I have been a frequent reader of the interesting content on IIS. I would like to show you my build of my 2nd floor balcony observatory, as my backyard is just too small to house a full scale ROR observatory. In addition, the balcony has much beter views of the Southern skies which are partly blocked from yard by three trees. The most challenging part of this build was to mount the pier, as I don't want it fixed to the balcony floor to prevent possible leaking of the roofing in time. Therefore I opted to fix the pier to the side wall of the balcony.
I made some 3D drawings of the situation in Google Sketchup (in which the clever eye will spot I have the mount RA axis pointing in the wrong direction,
) and started with cleaning the balcony floor (which hadn't been done for about 8 years or so). I also did a test imaging run to see if everything would fit as planned and it did. To support the gear and observatory I had a co-worker of the dad of a friend of mine weld an aluminium frame. The pier I got second hand and was adapted for side mounting by a good astro buddy of mine, thanks again Gerard. To save me some money I made an EQ6 pier adapter from an old used brake disk.