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Cleaning a primary.


Perkil8r

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I'm going to be flocking the 200p very soon but have noticed there is a fair amount of dust on my primary. I'm keen to know how I should go about cleaning it whilst it's out? All I know is that it needs to be done with a great deal of care... I don't want to do any damage, hence asking before I do something bad.

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Hi Mike.

At the very most I would blow it off with an air puffer.

Other than that I would leave well alone.

Graham

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There is a post knocking about somewhere about some alcohol type stuff you can use to clean your mirrors / lenses and it just evaporates off, I think Mick mentioned it, might be worth dropping him a pm about it.

In the mean time I will see if i can find the post.

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Air puffer in case you have any sharp grit on the surface, then warm soapy water in the shower with cotton wool wiping from centre outwards, just drag the wool, don't apply pressure, then rinse with Iso propyle alcohol (IPA) which evaporates dry leaving no marks.

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Guest Kheldar

Hi Mike.

At the very most I would blow it off with an air puffer.

Other than that I would leave well alone.

Graham

Could not agree more :) A badly cleaned mirror is worse than a dusty one, and dust doesn't affect things until it's pretty thick!

Kheldar told me not to use canned air on mine :blink:

An air puffer is not canned air.


/>http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Giottos-AA1900-Rocket-air-blower-UK-GENUINE-/160735407989?pt=UK_Camera_Cleaning_Equipment_Kits&hash=item256c93af75#ht_500wt_1215

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Thanks folks, will see if I can dig my air puffer blower bulb thingy out from the loft, I know there's one in there somewhere. More than that I'm not going to do for now, sounds like it's too dodgy to do on a whim. I'll wait untill it really needs it, it's pretty clean really so it can wait.

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I've never cleaned the primary on my 200p since buying it 5 years ago, although it probably needs doing now, I've never felt that the image is suffering

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Unless you can grow stuff on it, it's fine.

I have done mine once, and it had the old pulse going a bit. But it was ditched, and honestly it was difficult to notice any difference in image quality afterwards.

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I haven't needed to clean my current scope's mirror yet, but I cleaned a 10 inch mirror in my first dob. No ill effects but there again not near as much improvement as I expected, given the state of the mirror prior to cleaning. I'd leave it until you really have to.

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Guest AstronomyShed

Do NOT use normal 'cotton wool'. Standard cotton wool is not a particularly good grade and has some, for want of a better word, 'abrasive' qualities, the cotton wool you want is from pharmacies etc and is called 'cotton wool BP'. To be honest i don't use cotton wool, for me it's a good run and swill in warm water until any debris has gone, then a touch of washing up liquid and 'glide' your fingertips over the surface. Then rinse, repeat if necessary, rinse again and then rinse with distilled water. Distilled water doesn't have any salts in it and so will evaporate 'cleanly'. Normal tap water will leave salt marks.

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