[inertia8 (Australia)]

Hi All,

I've read thru a number of older discussions on fingerprints on mirrors and there seems to be no conclusive answer on yay or nay. Some say it will have little affect on performance, others say that whilst this is true the fingerprints contain amino acids and oils from the body, which will eat away at the mirror coating and thus should be removed.. Others dispute this and say that modern mirrors have a protective coating or that the fingerprints won't damage the mirror coating.

The discussion of a protective coating leads to some saying that the mirrors are therefore not as fragile and can be cleaned with care taken not to drag particles across the mirror.

Turn left at orion effectively states - don't try to clean the mirrors until they are effectively unusable, thus nothing to be lost if it goes bad.

I bought my scope second hand and it came with a couple of little smudges on the secondary, I wasn't terribly fussed. Then came a stupid moment last night when I hurriedly setup after watching Captain Phillips, good movie btw, and proceeded to absentmindedly reach in under the dust cap to "pop it out"... naturally my fingers recoiled in horror the instant they touched the secondary, however... more smudges.

Performance, well it was hard to tell, things didn't seem quite as sharp but I'm willing to admit that's either my paranoia from touching the mirror or that the seeing wasn't great after a couple of hot days then a cool change and it was a bit windy in places. Shining a light on the mirror reveals the horror but I've read that very few mirrors will present well under this scrutiny.

Question 1) Does anyone know if the secondary mirrors in the SW Heritage 130P are protected?

Question 2) Should I clean it?

Question 3) If I stuff up, are replacement mirrors available and at what cost?

Thanks