I want to share what needs to be done when constructing a pier, maybe this will help somebody with the same goal, and maybe I do something wrong and someone will let me know (please do!!)! This is my task for my vacation week, not a bad idea with all the Covid around us, being outside in nice weather and looking forward for a permanent pier to use, that will be so awesome! No scoping time this week, but I will take that with this outlook!

Stage 1: Since I do not trust the compass (at least not the cheap ones or the ones available on a smart-phone) I wanted to make sure that I will arrange the mounting screws in such a way so that the scope will point as close as possible to the north (fine adjustments are available at the pier itself and on the mount). So I have room of approximately 5 degrees left and right, I should be able to manage this. I took the aligned mount and pointed the scope to the north pole, and then dropped in the front and back a weight and marked this line with a little cord. So my N-S direction is set.

Stage 2: Digging the hole. I watched some YouTube videos (did not find many) and heard that 2 feet deep should be enough. Did not hear and see more about the length and width dimensions though. I decided to make it a 2x2x2 cubic feet hole, hoping that this is enough! If someone knows more about this please let me know, if this is too small or not deep enough; I still have the opportunity to make it bigger. Steel rods on each side and more to come vertically. And already framed the hole for the concrete.

Stage 3: With the help of the fellow Astrobiners I decided to extend the bottom of the hole to almost 3 feet, so more digging was needed. I added rebars as well, in total 12 of them, 4 into the sides and 2 vertically on each side of the whole. I used 4 feet long ones so that they got deep into the ground.

Stage 4: Buying the concrete and mixing and pouring it. In total 24 x 60 pounds bags were needed, more than I thought at the beginning. This was the hardest part on the body, without help this would have been a tough project, so get at least one more person into it.

Stage 5: Placing the rodds/screws in the concrete. This was my most worrisome part of the whole project. What if those screws (btw, they were 12 inches long, so deep enough in the concrete with still some room sticking out) are not placed right? Then I have a chunk of concrete in the yard for no purpose! I made a template (a bit bigger than the foot of the pier), in aftermath this template should have been a larger plywood sheet that covers the whole hole. So this did not work out that well, but I already tried out to place the pier on a 2x4 that spanned across the hole and that worked great. There was NO chance in this case to misplace the screws. I slightly tightened the pier with the nuts so that they could not shift away in any form. Just making sure that the pier will not fall down, that would have destroyed the whole project.

Stage 6: Waiting ... being patient. After 1 day the screws were pretty tight already so that I took the pier off, just in case someone knocks it over and again ruins the whole project. Then more waiting, I wanted to be sure so I waited for a week.

Stage 7: Putting the pier on it! Fist on each screws the 2 nuts and the washer per screw, then level them out as best as you can in height. Then the pier on top with another washer and nut followed. Also making sure that the pier points to the north, the screws were slightly off so I had to shift the pier a bit (less than 1 degree, the holes in the pier were elongated so that a shift of up to 5 degrees was possible). Tighten the nuts up a bit.

Stage 8: Getting the mount on it. The mount has a very accurate level and i was pleased to see that the initial setup was not too far off. Adjusting the nuts to get this level was not difficult, raise or lower appropriately and all was set, tighten the nuts at that position. Now after 3 weeks it is still perfectly level, so it must work 😊.

This was it ... was a fun project and gave me already a lot of joy! This was my Christmas present 2020.