Scopkes and smoke

Ok, so I went ahead and bought my wife an LX90.. it arrived this morning
but the previous owner smoked and the box smells awful. But that's a "so
what". Could the smoke have affected the telescope ? And if it needs
cleaning, where does one get that done ?

Thanks
Adrian

And my typing is ribbish already today.. sheesh!

"Adrian Parker" wrote in message
o.uk...
Ok, so I went ahead and bought my wife an LX90.. it arrived this morning
but the previous owner smoked and the box smells awful. But that's a "so
what". Could the smoke have affected the telescope ? And if it needs
cleaning, where does one get that done ?

Thanks
Adrian



Hi Adrian

Beside wheezing a little your scope should be OK. General guidance WRT
cleaning telescope optics is; don't. Unless the optics are filthy there'll
be no noticable degradation in performance.

Telescope house sell a number of scope cleaning kits:
http://tinyurl.com/a6fnl . I bought the AC496 to clean the corrector plate
(top bit of glass on the LX90) when pollen starts covering it.

Hope you and the wife enjoy the scope. Hope its everything you expected.

Regards


Chris

i cleaned a scope objective once, i took sooooo much care to use cotton
wool, baby soap and virtually no pressure......





......scratched the mirror to bits! My advice is as Chris's dont clean
it!!!

Ok, thanks guys, I'll stay away from it unless I can't see out of it

Thanks
Adrian

Adrian Parker wrote:
Ok, so I went ahead and bought my wife an LX90.. it arrived this morning
but the previous owner smoked and the box smells awful. But that's a "so
what". Could the smoke have affected the telescope ? And if it needs
cleaning, where does one get that done ?

Thanks
Adrian


Hi Adrian,

You might find that the corrector plate is quite dirty due to the tar
(and other lovely stuff) in the smoke. This can be a real problem as
bits of dust that would normally just fall off the 'scope will stick.
You might also end up with some grit/dirt on there as well :-(

We had a similar problem to this with the OU telescope (although it was
due to tree sap/exhaust fumes in the air rather than smoking) and we
cleaned the corrector plate with a mild soap solution. The flat
structure (i.e. what you see when you look a uniformly illuminated
field) before we cleaned it was terrible
(http://physics.open.ac.uk/~jdtanner/Before.jpg) so we didn't have much
choice. After cleaning, the situation improved significantly with
virtually no flat structure due to dust/grit
(http://physics.open.ac.uk/~jdtanner/After.jpg).

All the best,
JohnT
http://physics.open.ac.uk/~jdtanner

"Chris Taylor" wrote in message
...

"Adrian Parker" wrote in message
o.uk...
Ok, so I went ahead and bought my wife an LX90.. it arrived this
morning but the previous owner smoked and the box smells awful. But
that's a "so what". Could the smoke have affected the telescope ?
And if it needs cleaning, where does one get that done ?

Thanks
Adrian


Hi Adrian

Beside wheezing a little your scope should be OK. General guidance WRT
cleaning telescope optics is; don't. Unless the optics are filthy
there'll be no noticable degradation in performance.

Telescope house sell a number of scope cleaning kits:
http://tinyurl.com/a6fnl . I bought the AC496 to clean the corrector
plate (top bit of glass on the LX90) when pollen starts covering it.

Hope you and the wife enjoy the scope. Hope its everything you expected.

Regards

Chris
It is worth also asking, whether it is the scope, or the packaging, that
smells so bad. It is possible (for instance), that the packaging was in a
cupboard under the stairs, while the scope was out in the garage. The
packaging could smell foul, yet the scope wld not need anything done.

Best Wishes