Quote:
Originally Posted by mental4astro
Professional instruments, such as the 4m AAO puppy, is just the naked aluminium. As a result, the coat of Al degrades over a couple of years, and needs to be recoated. This is done with facilities built into the observatory.
Alex.
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Hi Alex,
The 3.9m AAO telescope mirror is recoated once a year. They cannot get more than this out of it due to the sensitivity of the instruments used on it. Some of the smaller telescopes on the mountain can go a bit longer between recoats (up to 2 years). The annual recoat on the 3.9m mirror was delayed a couple of months in early 2014 due to technical problems with the coating chamber ( or the crane, can't remember which ) but normally it's every year for the big fella.
Cheers
John B