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Old 30-10-2023, 05:57 PM
Saturnine (Jeff)
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Saturnine is offline
 
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Wollongong
Posts: 2,142
Hi Sean
Welcome to the forums, you seem to have a background that should make astronomy a bit easier to navigate your way around and hope you get enjoyment from your scope purchase. Personally, I wouldn't be too fussed about cleaning the mirror or playing with the collimation until you've had a bit more experience with using the scope and learning a bit more about the ins and outs of newtonian scopes. Mirrors with a bit of dust or haze will work surprisingly well and before touching the collimation , get a sight tube and check what the mirror alignment is like, it may be in good collimation anyway.
The 3 holes you mention may have grub screws in them, that sit below the mirror cell exterior. Most newtonians are open at the back , having the rear of the mirror mostly bare apart from the cell support around the circumference, is to aid the mirror cooling to ambient temperature when being set up, though a 150 mm piece of glass doesn't have much thermal mass so should not take long to cool down, or warm up if taken out of an air conditioned environment to a warm night outside.
The scope itself is not an ideal planetary telescope, a bit short in focal length, but it will still show Saturns' Rings and Jupiters main cloud bands and moons.
As you may be well aware , there is plenty of info online about newtonian telescopes and how to look after them and lastly just enjoy using it .
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