Re: [amsat-bb] Telescope Question

["Louis A. Mamakos" <louie@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> 
>        Could someone suggest what would be the best method for cleaning
> a telescope mirror (reflector/Newtonian) that has dust layer and possibly
> airborn contaminents on the mirror surface, without  scratching/damageing
> the mirror surface.

You might read this article to get some additional information:

http://skyandtelescope.com/howto/scopes/article_152_1.asp

The first piece of advice is: don't clean the mirror.  You need quite a
bit of gunk on the mirror to degrade it's performance.  After all, you've
already got a degradation of mirror performance due to the secondary
obstruction; how much dirt do you need to make the mirror perform
noticably worse?  

Of course, if the contaminents on the mirror are likely to damage
mirror, then that's a different story.   Like the guy that was
unlucky enough to get, ah, bombed by a very luckly and accurate 
bird flying by.

louie
wa3ymh


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