Mirror cleaning

Originally we were thinking of aluminizing the secondary mirror as its efficiency had decreased somewhat. As the cost of letting only the secondary mirror be aluminized would be very high, the only reasonable way is to do this together with the aluminization of one of the primary mirrors of an other telescope. However, there is no such opportunity in the near future so this is not an option at the moment.

Currently the main mirror is also rather dirty since a period with dust during the winter and we are planning a washing of the main mirror in the near future, which will also include washing the secondary mirror. Measurements of the reflectivity and scatter of the mirrors afterward should give us a better idea of the state of the mirrors.



Thomas Augusteijn 2008-01-11