Cerdic wrote:
I borrowed an Odyssey 1 (16", I think) telescope from my school. I
started looking at some stars and Mars and noticed that the telescope
seemed badly out of collimation (it was collimated before leaving school, I
figured the transport changed that). Well, collimation still seemed ok,
but I found that the mirror is extremely dirty.

Is there a good way to clean the mirror? Can I just pop the back
open, take the mirror out, and clean it with a water/isopropyl alcohol mix,
or is this something I shouldn't mess with?

I doubt you still want to clean it after all these advice.

But if so, follow that procedure :

1. carefully look at the primary
2. consider his size and the time and energy
it would cost to resurface it in case of problem
3. delay the operation to next year.
4. in one year, iterate from step 1

-- francois meyer
http://dulle.free.fr/alidade/galerie.php?maxim=12