How often should I clean my telescope?

[cjdawson]

At first glance, I'm sure you are thinking "oh no, not another newbie asking the infamous question".   Of course, the answer to this is at little as possible.

But what does that mean?    For a newbie, 6 months can see like a long time.   Once a year is surely the right answer, you know do it in the summer after the pollen so that it's ready for next season.     Sounds sensible, right?    WELLLLLLLLLLLL STOP.     I just cleaned my optics, when I say cleaned my optics, I mean cleaned a really bad spot that I was worried was looking like it might start causing long term damage to my optics.

Here's the picture of before...

all of this crud is on the inside of the corrector plate.  The big lump in the middle is the thing that I'm looking at with concern and want to sort out before anything really bad happens.

 

Here's my optics after cleaning....

 

Yes, it's the same part of the glass that you are looking at, I took the image from a different angle.

 

But, how long has been been since I cleaned the optics of my scope?

Newbies, take note of this....   I purchased my telescope in 2001.  This is the first time that I've cleaned the optics.

Yep.   It's 17 years old, and I've cleaned it only once.   And that one time is because there was build up that I was concerned would eat at the glass.   It I wasn't concerned that it was going to cause further damage, I'd have left it.   Hell, I'd already left it for about 5 years.  Maybe longer.

 

You'll notice some smearing possible smearing on the corrector in the after image.  I'm sure that this isn't cause by anything that will damage the optics.  It's also not going to do anything to effect the quality of my images, so I'm not touching it.  Any more cleaning could cause a scratch by doing something silly.

 

So the answer to the question "how often should I clean my optics?"   In my case, 17 years, longer if you can.  longer is better.   treat your optics with care and you may never have to clean them... ever.