pier height ??

[Tony Leece]

Hi everyone, just a quick question.
I am in the process of piecing together materials for an observatory.
It will be a roll-off conversion of my garage when finished.
I have been able to get my hands on a length of steel tube (for free)
It is 175mm in diameter, with a wall thickness of 8mm.
My first question, is this big enough to take a fully loaded eq6 pro for astro-photography and second, what is a good height for the pier ,not including the mount/scope etc?
any help here would be very welcome.
cheers...........
Tony.....

[koputai (Jason)]

Search Tony, this question has come up several times in the last few months. Consensus says anything from well, nobody really answers the question! It seems 1m is fairly popular.

Cheers,
Jason.

[Tony Leece]

Thanks Jason....

[Paul Haese]

That diameter is ok if you add gussets all the way along the length of the pipe, say 4 of them so that the diameter is extended to around 8 or 9". The wider this is the better really. For something around 1200 high you might want to consider an overall diameter of 10" including gussetts. Using gussets will also aid the stability of the flange welds too.

With a design like this you can later use a larger mount and scope on that pier too, if you so desire.

A short search here will give you several threads where calculations have been produced. It may prove informative for your needs.