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AUTO-PIER - PIER CONTROL SOFTWARE & HARDWARE

Pier-Tech Trademark Pier-Tech, Inc. is a US based manufacturing company. The company was established for the purpose of making fixed and portable Piers that can accept astronomical German Equatorial or Fork Mounts or other instruments. In time they expanded their production to develop astronomical observatories with slide-off roof, and most recently in 2008 they expanded production to include observatory domes for use by professional and home astronomical observatories, and planetaria constructed of galvanized steel in diameters from 8 feet (2.4m) up to 30 foot 6 inches (9.3 meters)! So by 2008 Pier-Tech was offering almost everything that an amateur or professional astronomer could want to house their telescope or other project.

Auto-Pier Telescope Pier Control Software & Hardware

Auto-Pier: Company Seven became impressed by this developing company because of their increasing selection of roll-off roof observatories and telescope piers, and also by how theirs became a unified system by means of their well thought out control systems and accessories. One of these is 'Auto-Pier'. Auto-Pier was developed to control their series of adjustable height elevating piers. These include the Pier-Tech 2, the greater capacity Pier-Tech 3, and the largest model Pier-Tech 4.

Right: Pier-Tech 'Auto-Pier' software display window.
Click on image to see enlarged view.

When we sell either of these piers they are provided with a manually operated controller that operates the pier by means of push the buttons on the provided hand pendant, this sends the control signals to the pier 110 volt AC (optional 220 volt) electric motor. This arrangement is fine for local control. But there are increasing requirements to be able to control the telescope, observatory, and pier remotely so while other software has been developed to control the other components 'Auto-Pier Software and Hardware' was developed to permit control of the Pier elevation from a nearby computer, or even from a great distance through a network.

Auto-Pier Features:

  • Remotely control one or more piers.

    Models supported include Pier-Tech 2, the greater capacity Pier-Tech 3, and the largest model Pier-Tech 4

  • Requires personal computer with Microsoft Windows operating system and USB port, this could be an Intel model Apple Macintosh computer with Windows OS installed too.

  • Provides feedback display of pier and station status.

Company Seven can provide as much support as the customer prefers: consulting and sales, facility preparation (foundation work, utilties, permits), construction, systems integration, and operator training. Just tell us what type of telescope and mount you have, and we can take care of the rest.


Product Gallery  click on the picture to view enlarged image


Auto-Pier display window

Pier retracted.

Pier elevated.
 

 

Auto-Pier Pricing:
Item # Description Price  
APCS Auto-Pier Software and Hardware set P.O.R.