On 13-Apr-04 7:12, Joe Bauman wrote:
good, safe, quick way to clean the dust from the surface of the corrector. Any suggestions? Or does anyone have any stories to share on this? When I worked with some engineers building a spectrograph, they cleaned optics using 2-propanol, kimwipes, and pure dry nitrogen (100% N2) at ~15 psi (or less). Everything was done with latex or vinyl gloves (no fingerprints on anything), and no soap or water. These optics run in vacuum (low or high), hence no residues can be tolerated; it takes "forever" to pump out a fingerprint.
They were very, very careful with the kimwipes. There were some nifty techniques for using the wipes, but since I never had to clean the optics, I didn't learn them. If using an alcohol to flush debris from the optics, nitrogen will evaporate it quickly, and leave no residue. Had the optics not been under vacuum, I doubt all the cleaning would have been considered worth the risk to the optics. I never saw them clean the front-surface mirror, and understood that to be a monumental undertaking (cleaning without destroying, that is). This is not a particularly practical scheme for a home shop, since most people don't have gallons of 2-proponal or kimwipes, much less tanks of N2 sitting around. -- We're sorry, but the number you have dialed is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again.