How to clean a telescope 

Fantastic! Thank you for the support and congrats on the new scope 🙂

Great to hear! Definitely follow up and let me know how it worked out. Good luck! 👍

It was super easy. Just be gentle and don't skip the step of marking the corrector plate with tape before you remove it so you can put it back in the exact same position.

I'll check it out! Thanks 😊

does the high concentration ethanol not damage the coatings?

@@bigPoe Hi there - in 99% of cases this is highly unlikely. The coatings are bonded to the glass surfaces at a very fine and deep level. Its important to put no pressure on them while cleaning, however. The best clean - amazingly - is the 'wet finger' technique, where with very clean hands, and both fingers and lens completely saturated with alcohol - the very fine ridges of the fingertips are then able to gently remove any dirt on the surface. It consumes a lot of isocol, but this (from decades of experience) does deliver a better-than-factory clean.

@@martinlagrange8821 Thanks for the response! I've always been weary of what I put on my corrector plate, let alone the actual mirror. Good to know!

I read that if using isopropyl that it should be a 40/60 mix isopropyl/water

@@sambothebold That works well, but takes a good deal longer to dry. My own preference is either 99% pure ethanol, or a clear ethanol/methanol mix.

How do you like your edge? My C8 does a great job with a reducer. But without it the edges get quite distorted. Shure would be nice to get HD all the way to the edge of the field of view. Hence the name I suppose 😉

@@MrWilsonsChannel I've had it for about a year now and love it for the 2800mm fl, I have the .7x reducer but haven't use it yet. If you get a chance to switch to and Edge HD or even play with one, I think you'll fall in love with it. I also swapped out the stock focus knob to a feather touch 10-1 microtouch.

Thank you for your kind words and support! Clear skies 😊

Great tips. I must have been using cheap cotton balls with mine because they left a lot of cotton funk I had to clean up afterward. I found better wipes then the costco ones I used in this video from a company named zeiss. They got the job done fast and cleared the streaks others left behind. My secondary was actually spotless, surprisingly, so I left it alone.

I hear you man! I did mine after my daughter went to bed... But I still don't have any dogs to contend with 🐕 Good luck!

I'll have to try this. Thanks for the tip 👍

Good idea! Maybe humidifier/atomizer would work

It's scary for sure. But not too bad once you actually get in there. And it looks so much better now ☺️

I like that trick! I'll have to try it out. I was able to get the columation spot on using this video from Dylan O'Donnell: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-uJ1u3eHBYVY.html

Thanks for the support ☺️

I recently discovered the Zeiss cleaning wipes myself and totally agree, they are way better than the Costco wipes or any of the other brands I've tried. Glad you liked the video. Tell your friends 😉

I recently discovered the Zeiss cleaning wipes myself and totally agree, they are way better than the Costco wipes or any of the other brands I've tried. Glad you liked the video. Tell your friends 😉

It does not. However, based off of the smell I'm going to say it contains some amount of isopropyl alcohol

If yours is that dirty, just be extra careful with the initial part where you're lightly swabbing. You don't want to drag that grime with force and scratch your coatings. Good luck!

@MrWilsonsChannel Thanks, I'll need it. Subscribed. I reckon I will need to address the secondary mirror in the corrector plate while I'm at it.

Thanks for the subscription! If it's as bad as you say it is, then you're probably right that the secondary mirror is likely also going to need a little TLC. Mine looked pretty good so I didn't bother cleaning it. But it should work the same way as the primary, I would assume?

That's interesting... Are those chemicals safe for the coatings on the optics? 🤔

Did you wash it in the dishwasher, or just use the dishwasher detergent and wash it by hand?

@@MrWilsonsChannel i did it with my hands and using toilet paper, i know that sounds a little crazy but if you are careful there will no be any issue.

I think that's the key: just being careful. The soap for a dishwasher is pretty coarse so it can blast off food in the machine. I think regular dish soap would be a safer choice. But as long as you're careful, you could probably get away with almost anything. TP is probably a really good choice since it's made to dissolve when wet. That probably makes it even softer when you're working with it. Great ideas! Thanks for sharing 🙂

Good idea

Mine had little pieces of what looked like cork equidistantly spaced around the corrector plate. They were about 3/4 of a centimeter each. They had some adhesive on them and it took a little bit of force to pop the plate off. I'd recommend putting a towel or something soft down just in case it catches you by surprise when it comes free and you drop the plate. You can see the moment mine broke free in the video and it surprised me. I didn't notice the adhesive things until it popped off. Its not a vacuum for sure as the tube isn't air tight. But I wouldn't rule out extra goopy glue that has degraded over time.

Did you get it apart? I have a C11 also and read that they have a gasket between the corrector and the metal tube which becomes stuck to the glass and tube. Just take a Q-tip and apply alcohol to the edge of the plate and let the alcohol run in and soak the gasket. Then after 5-10 minutes give it a tug holding the secondary holder (you did take the secondary out?) and it should pop loose. There are scribed letters also on the corrector plate opposite a screw... this is how you align it when you put it back so make note of it (It looked like there was a black marker dot on the bottom edge of his plate when it came out). My plate had no shims like another person said his 8" had so I made some paper shims and put equal pieces in 90° apart to center the plate when I reassembled it. It really not hard once you get it out. C upgraded when they made the Edge scopes and from what I hear they now have centering screws to center the plate around the edge of the tube.

I did finally get it off, and cleaned. it just needed a bit of extra care and convincing. 😅 ​@@tubedude54

No damage. It came out great and it's still nice and clean. Definitely recommend. I did find a cleaning wipe I like better than the costco ones. Lookup zeiss pre moistened cleaning wipe on Amazon.

Sometimes I'll get filters stuck on my equipment. It's caused because I screw the filter on at the start of the night when my equipment is fresh out of the bag and warm. As the night progresses things cool off and contract as they get cold. The filter ring contracts a little more than the thing that it's attached to which equates to it having a super grip on its mate. The solution has been to cool off my parts in advance. Since yours is already stuck, you can try some temperature fluctuations to see if that will help loosen them. The goal would be to get them to the same temperature they were when you twisted them together. Try warming them up in the sunlight for a bit, twisting periodically to see if you can get them loose. If you think you have the opposite problem, that is to say you attached the parts while they were cool and now they're warm and can't be separated, try putting them in the refrigerator for a little while to cool them back off. If temperature isn't helping, try using a strap wrench. It's a tool usually used to help loosen a stuck oil filter on your car. It consists of a rubber strap you can wrap around the part. It gives you a good grip and lots of leverage. If the parts are indeed stripped, you might be able to rotate them but they won't actually separate. In that case you might have to cut them off. I had that happen to a filter on my DSLR one time. The trick is to cut away the metal frame of the filter while trying not to damage the filter glass itself. You can always get a new filter frame for the glass for pretty cheap and reseat it again. Good luck! Let me know how it goes

I didn't think of that. But I might be a little concerned that the heat from the steam might damage the coatings on the optics. I'm not sure what they're rated for. I suppose it would also depend on the specific steamer you were using

That's a great idea. I've cleaned the outside of the corrector plate a few times using something similar, but this was the first time i actually took the whole thing apart... It was filthy and super scary. I put it off so long because i was afraid i might break it 😳

You got this 👍

Kazakhstan! Wow. It's so cool to see something I made have such reach. It's a great telescope, isn't it? I love mine.

In my case, it was already spotless. But if it needed to be cleaned as well, I would have followed the same procedure.

All of the optics can be cleaned the same way. In the video I show you the Costco wipes. Those work okay. However I have since discovered similar wipes from a company called Zeiss. They are superior to the Costco ones and can be ordered on Amazon.

It's such a great scope. I've seen some from the 70's that still produce an image just as clear as mine

@@MrWilsonsChannel received mine today and cam from a Nexstar 6SE. This one was awesome with its weight and portability factor. CS

You're going to love it! Have fun 😊

@@MrWilsonsChannel thank you. 😊 Stay safe. Subscribed

That's a tough one. The only way I know of that you could remove a scratch from optical glass is to regrind the glass. It's obviously not something most people can do outside of a lab. Additionally, most of the glass in the optical train of the telescope will be coated with special coatings which would be removed by such grinding. The best course of action is prevention. That's why I stress being so careful not to scratch the coatings in this video. I've heard of some liquid coatings you can put on scratched CDs back in the day that were supposed to fill in the scratches and harden. But I don't think those would be appropriate for optical glass like that in your eye piece.

Buy a new one

Thats a good tip. Saves you some trouble next time if you forget to put the tape down first. I haven't tried the Zeiss wipes... I'll have to give them a shot next time. Thanks for the tip 👍😁

Oh man, that's rough. Maybe try contacting the manufacturer of the scope? I have had good luck ordering replacement parts for assorted Celestron equipment, but nothing as integral as a corrector plate? I know the corrector plate needs to be reinstalled in the exact orientation that it was removed in. That seems to indicate it might require some specialized tools or skills to get everything to line up properly. Maybe you can even send it into the manufacturer to have the part replaced and adjusted?

@@MrWilsonsChannel thanks so much i did figure that out and i actually could see the moon pretty well considering the major cracks in the plate so im okay for now i just dont now where to get better barlow lenses to see more farther objects

​@@bulletproofpinata2328as far as I know plates are married to the mirror; they are not possible to replace without sending the scope back to the manufacturer and having a new plate married to it. It will likely be cheaper to buy a new telescope.

I was told by a Celestron disributor that the Mirror and Plate are paired, so you'd need to order a new mirror and plate - and anyway Celestron will not sell them. They will only sell the entire OTA. Given that most of the cost is in mounts, tripods, wedges, accessories, maybe a new OTA is the right way to go ... or just keep on as you are.

@@markscion i have reached out to celestron and they have sent me to where their "repair" email and they said for my cracked corrector plate they will need it sent in and replaced to get the plate paired 100% cause the mirror is imperfect and the plate corrects the imperfection and the repair and labor is about $280 guesstimate and about $50 guesstimated shipping fee for the 6se i have thanks for the help!!

The main object lense, or the eyepiece? If it's just the eyepiece that's missing then you can just buy another one

I get it, and I feel your pain. I'm in southern California where it generally doesn't rain... Like ever. But this winter has been the wettest I've ever seen. The last time i saw clear skies was about a week before Christmas, almost 4 months ago. Really abnormal for us. And before that I watched in horror as the milky way slowly slipped away into ever progressing light pollution. I want to experiment with wide angle landscape astrophotography, but I'd need to drive hours into the desert somewhere to be able to see the good stuff. So sad.

Lol! First time I've heard cloud cover being caused by climate change. Just a thought, did you know that the sea level has risen by over 400 ft since the last glacial maximum some 20,000 years ago?

I know what you mean. It's like "can't you find a home literally anywhere else?!" 🙄

Ok your lazy and do not want to roll the mirror fwd and remove the mirror assembly out the back of the OTA. Make a thin tube of plastic with those thin cheep knife cutting sheets. Use water proof tape or duct tape. Tip the OTA 45 deg down _+ 10 degrees and clean the mirror as above. Yes Its a pain and slower but that is what you get for being lazy and not pulling the mirror assembly out the back of the OTA.