G'day Again
So we officially started yesterday (me and the little one)
. I logged on to my favourite website, 'Ice in Space' (of course!
) and downloaded the informative entry by Mr. Mike Salway - Iceman (aka Sir Post a Lot) named 'Cleaning the Mirrors of a Newtonian Telescope'. Armed with this new knowledge (without reading it first
) I started to strip down the OTA.
My aims are to:
1. Clean the mirrors to a reasonable standard (but I am not expecting mircales, this will just be a cheap family and visual use OTA!).
2. Clean out the inside of the tube.
3. Flock the tube.
4. Re-paint the outside of the tube.
5. Fix the home made guidescope rail.
6. Undertake correct collimation.
7. Some how secure it to the mount saddle (I am thinking metal worm gear clamps/fasteners)
First of all we stripped the OTA down and extracted the mirrors.
They are in a real state, both primary and secondary!
Significant cobwebs, marks, dirt, dust and pigeon poo. Yes pigeon poo! The OTA must have been stood-up (without a cover
) for sometime in an old storage shed or garage. There is pigeon poo on the mirrors and down the inside of the tube.
We eventually extracted both mirrors (whilst being careful as to not catch avian (bird) flu) and then I started to read the article. Oops I don't have everything I need to clean with (i.e. distilled water and some soft paper towel etc). So I will post the images below of the stripped OTA and then head to the shop and will hopefully get around to cleaning them tomorrow
.
Stay tuned.
Clear Skies
Gav