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Blew $95 on a used Meade ETX-90 off Craigslist and the dusty corrector plate taught me more than my new scope
Bought a beat up Meade ETX-90 off a guy in Mesa for $95 about 4 months back, mostly because my new 8 inch Dob was too heavy to drag out on work nights. The little Mak had a hazy corrector plate and I almost flipped it, but a $9 bottle of distilled water and some unscented Kleenex got the crud off and the views of the moon and Jupiter were shockingly sharp. Ended up using that cheap scope 20 nights for every 1 night I hauled out the big one, which I did NOT expect. Now I keep wondering what other cheap glass is sitting in closets because people think a dirty lens means it is ruined. Has anyone here actually cleaned a corrector plate without wrecking the coatings?
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the_eva9d ago
Read somewhere that corrector plates are way tougher than people give them credit for, since the coatings are on the inside and the outer surface is just plain glass. The real danger is scratching it with grit or rubbing too hard, so you rinse first and blot instead of wipe. Sounds like you did it right with distilled water and plain tissue, and that little Mak earning 20 to 1 over the Dob says plenty.
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