Compact Canted HD Piers to suit Latitude Range 35 to 55°

This pier is a modernisation of our original Canted HD Pier optimised for smaller footprint without compromising stiffness. Construction is of laser-welded mild steel plate with internal baffling, then electropainted with a corrosion-resistant paint system in the client’s preferred topcoat colour. Life in damp environmental conditions will be many decades. The angled saddle plate for telescope mount attachment has a bolt pattern to suit the Skywatcher EQ8. Other options are possible on request. Power and data cabling can be conveniently routed from the pier base through the pier tube to the mount via PG29 cable glands top and bottom. In addition, two 102mm diameter cable ports equipped with brush seals are provided for installing cables with nonseparable connectors. Alternatively, a 3D cable snake/drag chain may be used if desired. A large access hole is provided for bolt access to the underside of the saddle plate.

The pier is designed to be epoxy-grouted to a substantial concrete foundation then through-bolted using 6 off M10 expanding anchor bolts around the perimeter of the 12mm thick base plate, providing a very stiff ground mounting. Mounting holes may be conveniently drilled with the pier in-situ. A typical 90Kg instrument payload on our Twin-Saddle Skywatcher EQ8 conversion will result in lowest pier vibration frequency of greater than 22Hz if the base is epoxy-grouted. If grouting is omitted, the lowest pier frequency is 20 Hz.

This pier was specifically designed to complement SAE’s Twin-Saddle single arm polar fork mount conversion based on the Skywatcher EQ8 GEM. As such, telescopes and imaging equipment mounted on each saddle can be pointed to any location without risk of collision with the pier, while meridian-flips can be minimised or eliminated (depending on the height of the observatory walls). The structural performance of this pier is extremely high, and is a good match for many high performance telescope mounts.

Polar alignment of an attached telescope mount is carried out in the normal way. SAE is pleased to engage professionally with client engineers regarding installation, structural performance and customisations.