So I have been working on an observatory setup for my residence in Phoenix.  Up until now I"ve posted mostly images taken from my portable Redcat 51 telescope and AM5 mount.  I have two permanent piers, a PierTech PT2 that holds my Lunt LS80MT solar telescope and a PierTech PT3 that has my new C14 Edge HD on a AP1600 mount.  The OTA had been on back order for well over a year.  I had originally ordered it through OPT.  Around late January of this year, my order with OPT was now a year old and still no telescope.  On a different forum I found that B&H Photo had the 14" Edge HD's in stock.  I found that to be correct and canceled my OPT order and got one from B&H.  Got it less than one week from ordering.  (They still have stock BTW and OPT still does not!). Needless to say this is a rather complicated setup.  I have a new shed close by in the back yard and planed the piers and shed to work together to feed power to the piers.  I have a Jackery 1000 that sits on a shelf in the shed.  I have conduits that feed out of the side, down the into the ground and then come up next to each pier.  I finally got the 110Vac AC and 12Vdc connections made so now I have a clean power feed to the piers.  I need 110Vac as that is what the piers use to raise/lower the telescope assemblies.  I actually have 2 DC feeds per pier as often mounts require a larger voltage power supply than all of the other 12Vdc accessories we all use.  My AP1600 for example uses a 15Vdc supply as provided by AP when I purchased it.

Here is a quick shot of the setup:


You can see the Lunt on my EQ6R mount and PT2 pier in the foreground and my C14 Edge, Vixen ED103S both sitting on top of my AP1600 mount, which all in turn sits on the PT3 pier.  The piers are wonderful BTW.  They are not cheap but they are SO nice to use.  One of my largest pet peeves with astronomy in general is I quickly found out you needed to be an olympic gymnast just to look through the eyepiece.  I hated that and now in my "mature" days I dislike it even more.  Bad backs, knees, shoulders, etc. don't lend themselves well to making a pretzel out of yourself to look through the eyepiece.  With the PierTech piers life is a dream.  Last night looking at the moon first it was just about overhead so with the setup you see, the eyepiece was about 3 feet off the ground.  I simply pushed the "UP" button and sat comfortably in my chair and raised it all up so the eyepiece was at eye level.  Everything stays centered BTW too.  Very nice.

Looking forward to lots of great evenings observing and photographing.