Finally completed the astro pier on my property (well, also GPS). I am going to use it to mess around with my T2, T3, DKM2, and S6, observing different stars/planets/moon etc.
Here is a pic looking north, the most obstructed quadrant (won't affect GPS):
Looking southeast, towards the house:
South, where there are a few trees a couple hundred feet away:
My office is on the second floor of the garage part sticking out in the above photo.
Looking west (downhill), where I will put the azimuth mark down by the barn:
Finally, a close-up of the top plate:
It is a PVC pipe set about 4' into the ground, filled with concrete. I built a similar one outside the office I used to work at in the early 90's, and we bluebooked it as a HARN. Well, one day the surveyors from the local electric utility showed up, and I was watching them through the window from my office. They were trying to setup a tripod over top to put the GPS on. Duh, it has a 5/8" all thread rod sticking out of it.
Very cool John. where are you located?
Don
If that wee mine I'd build an observatory building around it and put my 8" scope in it...
Jim: that was my next idea, but the wife nixed that 😛
just south of Pittsburgh
Some of the real fancy piers in Europe have a pipe surrounding the central pier with an air space in-between so that there is no solar torsion ... observable with T-3s or T-4s. Nightime use has no such worries, though.
:good:
Nice Work John!
Ralph
Nice.
You might own a DKM John but I bet you don't own one of these
Love the circular driveway/walkway.
The pier is ok too 🙂
Here is one I've used a time or two.
other side
Sonofa -- where is that monument? I've not seen one of those in CO.
We do dam deformation surveys at 16 reservoirs and 23 navigation locks-almost all have some of these (sometimes 10+ at a project) for stable reference monuments.
Also, many other countries construct their calibration baselines using pillars.
NotSo,
This monument is located near Julesburg, CO.
The monument was established in the late 1800's and I believe is one of three left from the Fremont surveys. One was recovered recently in Georgetown by the PLSC and I believe there is another located in Trinidad. I would post the datasheet but can't seem to get the NGS site to work for me this morning
Now it's time to go dodge some traffic.