Post height

I have pretty much put my hobby aside due to lack of time while I put in my last few years of work. Now I am preparing to retire and I am building my dream home at a good dark sky site in the interior of British Columbia, Canada.

I am including a built in roll off roof observatory in the house design. It will be 8'X 10' and I want to include 2 concrete plinths.

At present I have the WO 132 which would be good for astrophotography but I will likely buy a new mount and possibly a large SC telescope - say a 14" Celestron for permanent mounting.

My problem is I have to make a guess at the wall height and the level of the plinths above floor level and I don't know what kind of mounting bolt pattern to put on the plinths.

My current thinking is to make the walls 7' high, the plinth 1 or 2 inches above the floor and put four bolts in a square pattern with 10" centers. I am hoping this will allow me to adapt to any telescope and mount in the future - does anyone have any thoughts on this? Maybe some links to good discussions?

[MikeM]

7ft sounds about right to me so one doesn't have to crouch while walking about. In reading others conversation, you have to keep in mind if you are going to use a standard size door or have one fabricated. Obviously a standard size would be more cost effective.
As for the pier (plinth) maybe a good idea would be to set up your equipment and take the measurement from the top of the tripod to the floor and add about 2-3 feet beneath it for when sinking it into the ground?
Rick aka gardenfish just recently finished building one, maybe he will chime in and give you his thooughts.
Below are a couple of discussion on the topic in CN.

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/523718-wall-height-verses-pier-height/

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/258107-pier-height-vs-wall-height/

Thanks Mike, those are great discussion links.

One of my problems is I haven't actually purchased my final mounts so I have to make it generic.

This is what I have in mind

snap 1.JPG (58.43 KiB) Viewed 503 times

snap 2.JPG (64.59 KiB) Viewed 503 times

A picture I took with my DSLR at the new house site. The black clouds tell me there is very little light pollution. When you have light pollution the clouds tend to be brown or orange.

https://flic.kr/p/MqDrx3