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Cleaning Mirrors
Hi,
I have had to clean my main mirror twice in the last 3 months and had no problems if it is done correctly and it improved my view by quite a lot. Just make sure you only use luke warm water with one or two drops of dish washing detergent - see the article on this web site. But you must rinse it off thoroughly with distilled water (not DE-ionized - it is not the same and has a lot of minerals salts, it will leave a film of salts behind).
As as for how you treat it after it has dried, first remove any dust with a puffer, (you will get some no matter how careful you are with the drying process, Than, I usually give it a very light buff with a clean camera lens cleaning cloth to remove any dullness you get even with pure high quality distilled water, a little bit of pressure is o.k as most modern mirrors are coated and will not be damaged by this action - (check the specs of your mirror).
Double check your finish in different light angles to see properly if there are no smudges and buff as necessary.
With general Astronomical observation you can get away with a bit of dirt on the mirror, so you should leave it alone, .......
.......but if you are doing high power double star observations with close pairs you need to have everything spotless and and the optics tightly collimated.
If in doubt - leave it alone!!
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