|
Hi All
Attended a lecture by Dr David Buckley the scientist in charge of the SALT telescope in sutherland South Africa.He is a New Zealander who studied at the university at Siding Springs in Oz.
He was explaining how the mirrors on SALT hadnt been cleaned since they were manufactured. The dust was so bad after 2 years you couldnt see your own reflection. The telescope still operated albeit with slightly degraded efficiency. The new mirror cleaning system is almost complete and it is basically a robotic arm that sprays highly filtered and 99.99% CO2 over the mirror. The pressure and flow rate is quite high and the CO2 forms snowflakes. The arm starts at the top and works its way down and the arm obviously does not touch the mirrors. Apparently this is very effective and the tempereture does not affect the mirror. I suppose you could use a CO2 fire extinguisher provided you used an efficient filter to prevent any particulates getting to the mirror.
Just a thought.
Regards
Steve
|