Quick rain question - possibly urgent

[dav1d]

Just been caught outside in the rain & my secondary caught about 16 drops before I managed to get inside. The primary didn't catch any as I was lined up for Saturn - so that's good.

Do I wipe them off or leave them to dry? If I wipe them off, what with?

Googling for telescope mirrors & rain brings up photon analogies. What is the best course of action?

[RikM]

I would let them dry and then assess what to do about it. 'Wiping' the mirror could well do more harm than good.

[dav1d]

That's what I was thinking. Still going to have to deal with it at some point though & I'm worried about ring marks.

Weather sucks sometimes

[Tribal-Wolf]

Might be worth keeping a bottle of distilled water handy for such occasions then you can rinse it off before it dries. It will probably be ok.

[dav1d]

Excellent suggestion _ I may do just that. It's mostly gone now & I can't see ant marks, so I may have dodged a bullet this time

[Spikey]

Baader optical wonder cleaning fluid from FLO will do the job, it even comes with a little microfibre cloth.

[Tribal-Wolf]

Baader optical wonder cleaning fluid from FLO will do the job, it even comes with a little microfibre cloth.

Except it says on the bottle 'not for mirrors' lol

[Nillchill]

i had that once, put a hair dryer on low heat and gently evaporated the water, left no mark, and mirror was fine afterwards.

i was extremely gentle with the heat and it took an hour or so to do it

[Ibbo!]

Chances are it will be fine

Steve

[glowjet]

Not being a reflector man myself, but knowing how strange our weather can be at times, when it starts to rain when the sky is clear ( rain borne on the wind from an impending shower ) would not a waterproof cloth to hand, ready to chuck over the aperture, be useful, giving you time to put other items of value under cover, just a thought

[Carbon Brush]

A warning about deionised, or distilled water.

If you get distilled water, that contains nothing but water. It will evaporate leaving nothing behind and does not contain abrasive particles.

De-ionised water, which is cheaper and easier to buy, may well contain impurities that are not electrically active but may have other impact.

For example, water with fine sand or glass particles is free from ionic content and therefore deionised.

[Ponoobersie]

I have seen that a hair dryer on a low heat does the trick, I know as a mate was caught out too, as NillChill said took about an hour but it works