Mirror care and cleaning - a mirror maker has his say

[erick]

http://www.loptics.com/articles/mirrorcare/mirrorcare.html

Mike Lockwood's advice

[gregbradley]

Thanks for that Eric.

I basically followed that. In my case I left the mirror in place and had the scope slightly below horizontal so the water could drain out.

I used a Bunning pump up garden sprayer to wash the mirror and used osmotic filtered water.

I then used Bintel cleaning fluid and daubed it with lots of cotton puffs. Once no grit and pretty clean I did a final clean with Bintel cleaning fluid and white unscented tissues changing frequently and small areas at a time. Then a final minor streak here or there cleanup.

Mirror looked like new after about 9 months of use.

Also another precaution, you'll find 90% of your serious dust and grit comes from those few nights that are really windy. So it may be a good policy to not use your scope on those few really windy nights.

Greg.