I've been at my new place of employment for 5 or 6 weeks now, & it turns out my boss has a telescope & 'into' astronomy. I turned up to his place only last week to check out his scope...it's a 8" GSO dob, nice little scope in pristine condition, about 12 mths old.
Any hoo, we're discussing this & that, & I get around to the subject of cleaning mirrors (I noticed some black flakes, I assumed paint, perhaps from the inside of the OTA sitting on the primary & commented on it) I asked him how he usually stores the scope, he says with the tube vertical. I tell him to move the OTA into the horizontal position. I then told him how to clean his mirror (in great detail) if he ever wanted to do it, blah blah.
After telling him, he said he couldn't be blowed taking the mirror out just to clean it. I said ok, whatever you wanna do mate, it's your scope
He then suggests sticking the compressor nozzle down there to blow the crap off...I say NO mate!
....& I tell him why.
I get to work this morning & he comes up to me & says..."I cleaned me mirror"
I say to him hesitantly, 'Ummm...how'd you do it mate?'
He says, "bought myself a special cleaning cloth...wrapped it round a stick & stuck it in the tube & gave the mirror a good sprucing up!!
Internally I'm going...
Externally I just shook my head a little bit & said nothing.
Did he not listen to a word I said? Apparently his father was into astronomy/scopes........Well Dad forgot to tell the son how to clean optics the correct way...if Dad ever knew how, that is.
New people with telescopes, please don't clean your optics on your scope this way....PLEASE?
...........
