Equipment Updates

[SmokeyJoe]

 

I have a sky watcher 200p on a EQ5 goto supplied eyepieces (10mm and wide angle 25mm) and a 2x barlow.  For various reasons the scope hasn't been out for a couple of years and while moving house the box containing my eyepieces and filters got dropped!!!!!! I don't know how the eyepieces fared (waiting for a new mount to arrive before I can use scope) but there are definitely smudges and dust on the filters. So my question is threefold

1. I've heard you shouldn't clean eyepieces and filters but given the state of the filters there is nothing to lose so  what is the best way to clean them.

2. As I said I am not sure if the eyepieces have been damaged, I was thinking of buying a couple of new ones anyway. Given that I am interested in both deep sky and planetary astronomy, I wear glasses and am observing in the middle of an housing estate and budget is limited what would people recommend to get observing again.

3. Assuming both filters and eyepieces are damaged I have seen a few kits available by celestron and skywatcher some have lots of lenses and filters some just three or four.  Given that I may have to replace everything are these with the money?

Thanks in for the help.

[Cosmic Geoff]

If the eyepieces were in the original packaging, being dropped is highly unlikely to have caused any harm. If they were bare and fell on a concrete floor, that's a different matter.

Wait till you get the scope working, and see which eyepieces are particularly unsatisfactory (probably the 10mm).  If you are interested in planets and double stars, you may want a better set of Barlow and shorter focal length eyepieces to step the magnification up a bit. Some eyepieces do not work well in a f5 scope (which I assume yours is.)  The nominal maximum magnification for a scope of this aperture is 400x, but this makes unrealistic demands of the eyepiece (2.5mm!) the EQ-5 mount (not really adequate at this power) and the quality of UK sea-level 'seeing'.

I use a 10mm Baader Classic Ortho in a scope similar to yours.

[SkyGibbon]

As far as cleaning, I use a camel hair brush to brush out any dust, dirt, debris. I then use my breath, plus a soft glass cleaning cloth to finish. As far as any liquid, I only use distilled water on tough areas, if there are any.

[laudropb]

Both the eye pieces and the filters can be cleaned. Blow off the loose dust with a bulb air blower and then very gently use a soft lens brush remove any more stubborn dust. Then clean the lenses and filter using Baader wonder fluid and a microfibre cloth. Always put a small amount of fluid on the cloth and not the lens or filter. All these tools are available from FLO. Although the wonder fluid might seem expensive, it lasts for years and is well worth the money.

[rockystar]

23 minutes ago, laudropb said:

Although the wonder fluid might seem expensive, it lasts for years and is well worth the money.

Unless your 4 year old decides to put it in the dog's water bowl... but yes, it is great stuff - must buy some more...

[laudropb]

And did the dog like it lol

[Ricochet]

If you do decide new eyepieces are needed I would suggest a few well chosen focal lengths to match your particular scope are going to be better than buying a set. If you wear your glasses to observe then short focal length plossls (as are supplied in the sets) aren't going to be much use. 

[SmokeyJoe]

Thanks all for the advice, Definitely going to invest in some wonder fluid and as for eyepieces birthday in a month or so! Thinking of celestron x-cel lx as they seem to have good eye relief.