A Telescope Pier

I'm in the process of building a few little (relatively little) things outdoors as the weather and my health allows...  which means, over the course of only a few hours a week...  but at least things are progressing.  I am making some headway so that is good. 

One of the things I'm building is a small fenced area in our yard where I can do some astronomy.  Last summer we had too many bears freely roaming around our neighborhood for me to feel safe out there alone in the pitch darkness.  This year, I'm enclosing myself inside a small fenced area that includes a shed.  

Rather than constantly lugging a tripod from indoors to the outdoors and then lugging it back indoors again, I decided to build a pier within this fenced area.  I will be able to mount any of my telescope mounts on this pier, electronic or manual, without the use of a heavy-duty tripod.  Having a permanent pier outdoors will give my spinal injuries a little bit of a break.  

The pier, itself, is quite simple.  I have bolted four treated 4x4's together using heavy galvanized bolts.  This resulting 8x8 pier will be embedded in concrete in the yard.  What gets mounted on top of this 8x8 gets a bit more complicated though and I am in the process of building that as well. 

I need this pier to be sturdy, permanent and yet adjustable too.  Whichever telescope mount I choose to mount on top of this pier needs to be perfectly level and aligned perfectly with the celestial north pole so I've designed an adjustable pier mounting head and have already ordered most of the stainless steel parts necessary to build it.  I'll write more about this adjustable pier mounting head another time. 

In the meantime, my heavy wood pier is ready to be installed into a hole with some gravel and concrete.  I have a few other things to accomplish first though.  I would like to have a better idea of the location of the little shed and fencing before I permanently place this pier in concrete so I need to make some progress on those two things as well.  

I now have a telescope pier that is ready to be placed in the ground...