pier question

hello all- well, I finally have the observatory now I would like to build a pier.
Because of weight concerns, I would like to make it from wood.
My question is how high does it need to be off the floor. I have a LX90 SCT 8" and if it matters, I am 5'7" tall.
Any other suggestions on how to build this animal would be appreciated.

You might get a lot of advice posting this down in the home observatories section.

Meanwhile--before putting that observatory up, dig yourself a deep hole. Maybe two or four feet deep and foot and a half to two feet across. This is essential to holding a pier. You are going to fill it with concrete and then either bolt the pier to it, or have it become the base of a concrete pier.

ANd then, as has been asked--why wood?

And finally--there is no one answer to your how high question. It depends on what tube style you are using (SCT's are lower than refractors, and newts are much lower still), whether it is mostly visual or cameras (cameras can go anywhere, people cannot controt quite that well), your observatory requirements (how high do you have to get your tube to see over the wall and get most of the sky you are interested in), and then your own preferences and style (how tall are you?).

You may want to imagine your current setup in the observatory (tripod and all). How high is the base of the mount head above the ground? that is about how high it has to be with a pier (all other things, like tube type being equal). Remember, if you set your tripod on a floor, you will have to add some distance because your pier will be coming up from the ground, not the floor.

(By the way--I know you have the answers to some of these questions already--but you get the idea.)

Alex