Maintenance and Cleaning

Your telescope is a precision instrument that does not need a lot of maintenance. When you are observing in humid conditions, the telescope will get wet with dew during the night. When you take the telescope back indoors after the observing session, do not immediately put the telescope into a sealed compartment. Put it on a rack or some other place where air ventilation can happen and let it dry before you put it away. Exposure to moisture does not harm your telescope directly, but permanent exposure might cause the growth of fungi that will have a negative effect on the telescope.

Mechanics

When you notice that dust or pollen has gathered on your telescope you should wipe the telescope clean with a cloth and maybe some glas cleaning solution. Rack out the focuser to its most outward position and wipe the drawtube. Remove all dirt or other particels from the surfaces that are involved in the movement, like the surfaces that have contact with bearrings, and use a brush to remove all debris from the rack if present. When there is some kind of fatty or oily stain, gently remove it with a cloth and tissues that are wetted with glas cleaning solution. If you feel that the focuser is running rough, you might apply a little vaseline onto the rack of the focuser. The important word here is "little". Rack the focuser tube in and out a few times and remove all excess grease or vaseline immediately afterwards. There should not be any grease or vaseline visible on any part of the focuser, including the gears. When temperature is high, for example inside a car on a hot afternoon, the grease or vaseline might get fully liquid, get inside your optics and then there is a problem. You want to avoid this as much as possible. So all visible grease or vaseline must be removed.

Optics

The optical system of your telescope will not need any regular maintenance. While the mirrors of a reflector have to be collimated from time to time when it has been moved, a refractor optics typically does not need any new collimation. If you think that your refractor needs collimation, do not try to do this yourself, call the service department.

What is needed from time to time is cleaning the optics. Optics do NOT have to be cleaned when you can see some dust while you are looking onto the optics, especially with a bright lightsource. Only when you see effects in your views or pictures that are caused by dirt, such as halos around bright stars or planets, then the optics need to be cleaned. The other reason to clean the optics is when there is pollen present on the optical surfaces. The yellow pollen that is very present in spring does not harm the optics. However, the bacteria that eat the pollen have acid droppings that will in time damage the coating and the optical surfaces.

We strongly recommend cleaning the optics with the help of our optics cleaning set:

https://www.astroshop.eu/lens-cleaners/omegon-7-in-1-lens-cleaning-set/p,69986

Blow away the dust and pollen with the bellow. This should be all that is needed. If any additional dirt is on the optical surface, use the optical cleaning fluid and the wipes. Do NOT spray directly onto the optical surfaces. The fluid might run into the lens cell and then there will be dirty fluid inside the optics. This would have to be removed by our service department, causing additional costs. Spray the fluid onto the wipes that are included with the set and then remove the stain with gentle, soft strokes. Do not rub and never apply pressure. If this does not remove the dirt, call the service department.