Very early on, I had decided on building my own permanent observatory for two very good reasons:
- One did not have to set-up and take-down every viewing night.
- One kept warm and cosy in the house. No freezing outside for me!
My first task was to build the concrete pad for the pier. For this I got somebody in to dig the hole and fill it with concrete.
I’ve read one needs at least one cubic metre for the pier base (which is approximately 3ft x 3ft x 3ft). I had a domestic waste drain running 3ft feet below the surface close to my proposed hole and I didn’t want to risk damaging this, so in the end I went for a round hole 5ft in diameter and 2ft deep.
As the concrete was drying I fabricated a wooden round disk (the diameter of my pier base) and carefully levelled it, then weighted it down with a couple of bricks. The whole slab was left to harden for about a month.
Four stainless steel studs were fixed into the concrete with a two part epoxy resin, the pier finally bolted down and the top checked for level. I then painted the whole pier with a metal paint.
