The POD has allowed me to have my mount and scope set up more or less permanently and image much more often than I would have otherwise - heck, with the overly complicated setup I have now, it would take me 2 hours to set it up each night and another hour to break down. It became obvious very early on, however, that imaging certain parts of the sky was going to be problematic.
With my particular setup, anything north or Leo was going to be obstructed by the dome of the POD a good hour and a half prior to zenith and longer after zenith. While I couldn't do without my POD, I had to come up with a solution before summer with Cygnus and Cassiopeia being right in the problem zone.
My first attempt at a zenith solution was a miserable failure. I made it out of plywood and before I even finished it, I had a twisted wreck of screws, glue, wood, and braces that ended up in the burn pile.
After some baby-like whining and bitching on the POD Yahoo Group, Eric B. came up with his own version of the
Zenith Truss, and I emailed him for a consultation and built my own truss modeled after his design Version II.
