What to do while home with cloud and rain? Sounded like time for a once-a-year optics clean. The optics of my primary telescope are left open to the air all year, this aids automation (so I dont go out there to take the cap on/off). The dirt certainly builds up though, so eventually I bite the bullet and give them a gentle clean. Not the kind of thing you want to do too often, optics should be touched/cleaned as little as possible. In this case the difference was quite obvious and the dirty cleaning pads good evidence of the need. Also, while Im at it, heres a neat looking galaxy that really gets my imagination going. NGC 7184 has beautiful structure and is a great candidate to come back to later for a colour shot with longer exposurs. This was taken through the now cleaned telescope a few weeks back, while I was at Rottnest cycling around doing wide field nightscapes/astrophotography actually.
Posted on: Sun, 01 Jun 2014 04:21:17 +0000
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