How to use Spray First Contact™.
How to Remove Water Spots with First Contact™
How much Spray First Contact™ is needed?
Mirror Storage and First Contact™.
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First Contact™ is the optimal cleaning and protection product for your telescope optics. This means the primary mirror but also the secondary mirror, the corrector plate, and small optics like the eyepieces and camera lenses that are part of the telescope optics system.
First Contact™ is safe for all mirrors and optical surfaces. It has been used to clean 1.8 meter (70.9 inch) hexagonal mirrors in the W. M. Keck Observatory and other meter class mirrors by ESO in Chile, the LuLin Observatory in Taiwan, and the Hong Kong Space Museum in Hong Kong. Customers include several military optics depots with responsibility for telescope mirrors from 8 inches to 142 inches (3.6 meters.) Observatories in North America, South America, Asia, Africa, and Europe use First Contact™ to clean their mirrors.
Why use First Contact™?
To simplify mirror care and cleaning! No moving the mirror, no lifting the mirror, no touching the mirror. With First Contact™ it is not necessary to remove the mirror from the mirror cell or the telescope. The mirror can be cleaned in the telescope. Why handle the most delicate and most expensive component of your telescope if you do not need to? Please watch the video Application of First Contact™ to an 18″ mirror at NEAF 2008.
Another reason to use First Contact™ is it eliminates the chance of scratching the mirror while drying water off the mirror, removing, or handling the mirror outside the mirror cell or telescope. First Contact™ is sprayed onto the mirror and allowed to dry. Please watch the video Removing First Contact™ polymer film from an 18″ mirror at NEAF 2008. The dry polymer film peels off in a single piece without streaks or water spots. The mirror is perfectly clean and ready for use.
First Contact™ is a valuable product; it is certainly more costly than soap and water, alcohol, acetone or other mirror cleaning products. However, it is faster, easier, more reliable, and safer than other methods. First Contact™ allows cleaning without risk of streaking due to uneven water evaporation or the presence of chemical residues. There is no need to have gallons of liquid, piles of towels, or sturdy external support systems for the mirror. First Contact™ cannot scratch the mirror as paper or cotton products may when drying the mirror. Finally, for open truss telescopes, the mirror can stay in the mirror cell and telescope while using First Contact™. Just look at the photo of a technician inside a 36” telescope applying First Contact™ right inside the tube! This convenience and flexibility is only possible with First Contact™.
Astronomers should be aware that mirrors age, resulting in a loosening of the reflective coating. The tendency is for the coating:glass interface to degrade near the edges of the mirror and around pinholes in the coating. It is not easy to know if a coating is old enough to have loose reflective coating, but an older mirror yields less precise images due to reduced reflection and increased scattering. The human eye may not be able to detect these deficiencies especially as their severity increases gradually over time rather than in a sudden, stepwise fashion.
A survey of mirror coaters suggests that mirrors should, in general, be recoated at least every 8 to 10 years. Individual circumstances may vary with the quality of the initial coating, mirror care, mirror cleaning protocol, and mirror storage conditions to name some of the contributing factors. It is for this reason that we recommend care when cleaning a mirror with First Contact™. First Contact™ will actually and truly clean a reflective surface, however it can also remove loosely adhered coatings from aged or compromised optics like astronomical mirrors. Photonic Cleaning Technologies does not control care factors, mirror manufacture, or aging conditions and therefore cannot guarantee that cleaning a mirror with First Contact™ will not result in some loss of aluminium from older coatings. We suggest that any mirror that loses aluminum when treated with First Contact™ is not in top condition and the quality of images seen with the mirror are not optimal; the mirror was due for recoating in any case.
How to use Spray First Contact™
The quick description is very simple: mask off areas that will not be cleaned using polyethylene plastic, leaving only the mirror exposed. Spray on First Contact™. Allow the solution to dry to a strong polymer film, sort of like Saran wrap, then lift an edge of the film and peel it off the mirror.
NOTE: First Contact™ adhesion decreases as the solution dries. Even if the polymer film feels dry to the touch, the film may be wet underneath. DO NOT pull hard on the polymer film in an attempt to release it from the mirror. Allow more time to dry, overnight is good. See this video, Application of First Contact™ to an 18″ mirror at NEAF 2008 to see the application process and this one, Removing First Contact™ polymer film from an 18″ mirror at NEAF 2008, to see polymer film removal.
Photonic Cleaning Technologies researched spray application methods and offers a complete spray application system. Spray First Contact™ is available ready-to-use from the package with spray bottles provided by Photonic Cleaning Technologies. Spray First Contact Instructions provides more information about applying the product, which manual spray bottles to use, and how to care for the spray pumps.
Refractors, Eyepieces, Lenses, and Small Optics
We advise brushing First Contact™ onto small optics like filters, eyepieces, lenses, and mirrors smaller than 5 inches, 12.7 cm, diameter. You may apply spray formula First Contact™ with a brush to clean the small optics; however if you have a First Contact™ Star kit, it contains 15 ml of brush-on First Contact™. Any natural hair brush or nylon bristle brush will do. Get a nice, soft bristle brush at an art supply store. Photonic Cleaning Technologies supplies a brush in the applicator bottle with all brush-on application kits and the First Contact™ Star kits, FCS and RFCS. Here are instructions for cleaning small optics, pay particular attention to the tips about using unwaxed dental floss when cleaning recessed optics.
NOTE: Check with the eyepiece and camera manufacturers to ensure the optics are made of glass, not plastic. First Contact™ solution should not be used on plastic lenses.
NOTE: Do not apply First Contact™ to the rubber eyecups on your eyepiece. Leave a small ring, about 1 mm, between the eyecup and the First Contact™ solution.
Water Spots, Pollen, Sea Salt, Bird Droppings, and water soluble contaminants
Telescope optics often have water soluble contaminants like water spots from dew, pollen, or salt from sea mist. First Contact™ cannot always remove these water soluble contaminants by itself so it is recommended that the telescope be cleaned using a combination of distilled water and clear Spray First Contact™ Solution.
Do not use a lot of water, a light misting should be sufficient. A fine mist sprayer like the small spray bottle, SBKS, or medium spray bottle, SBKM, sold by Photonic Cleaning Technologies is good for water application. Use distilled water or a very dilute detergent solution or whatever you are comfortable applying to the mirror, but use only enough to moisten the contaminants and allow them to begin to dissolve. The solvents in First Contact™ mix with the water or water solution and bring the liquid and the loosened contaminants into the polymer. When the solution dries and the polymer film is removed from the optic the water soluble contaminants should be gone and the optic will be clean.
Here is a short slide presentation about removing water spots and water-soluble contaminants from optics. The images show the process on a telescope mirror and were provided by the Western Range Depot Optics Group at Vandenberg Air Force Base. How to use First Contact to remove water spots.
Here is a short presentation made possible by another customer, this one hails from the Plains States. In short, one of his feathered friends left a calling card. This customer called us, bought First Contact and used it for the first time ever to clean the mess and sent us the photos you are about to see. This is testimony to how easy it is to learn about and successfully use First Contact on your optics. Bird dropping clean-up with First Contact™.
When using water to remove contaminants, a bit more First Contact™ solution may be needed to clean the optics. If the moistened optic has a cloudy look to it when the recommended amount of First Contact™ has been applied, then use a bit more First Contact™ solution on the cloudy areas to eliminate the cloudiness. This may not always be necessary, but it is important to eliminate the cloudiness and ensure the First Contact™ solution is in balance as evidenced by a clear solution. The cloudy areas, if not eliminated, will not be clean when the polymer film is removed.
When using water the solution needs more time to dry before removing the polymer film. Allow several hours, which may not be needed but better safe than missing a clear sky at the new moon! If you have the luxury of time and organizational skills to match, allow the mirror to dry overnight. First Contact™ is never too dry, but it can be too wet to remove. Remember that First Contact™ will feel dry to the touch before the film is actually dry. Do not use force to remove the film, it should release easily from the edge of the mirror.
How Much Spray First Contact™ is needed?
Spray First Contact™ is very efficient. A little bit goes a long way: 1 milliliter treats up to 24 square centimeters, or 1 ounce treats up to 120 square inches, of mirror surface. Here is a chart detailing Spray First Contact coverage based on Mirror Size to help decide which First Contact™ kit(s) is/are needed to clean your telescope optics.
If you need to determine the total surface area of your telescope optics, figure out the surface area of each component (SA = πr2) and add up all the surface areas. Then compare the total surface area to this chart detailing Spray First Contact Coverage based on Total Surface Area
to determine the most economical amount of spray First Contact™ to buy.
It is often more cost effective to purchase enough First Contact™ to clean the mirror 2 or 3 times. First Contact™ can be stored for as long as a couple of years. Keep the bottles tightly capped, put them in a plastic bag, and store them in a cool dark spot. A refrigerator is perfect, or a dark corner of an air conditioned building.
Contact Photonic Cleaning Technologies if you have questions about the products you should get for your situation or for information about storing the product and shelf life.
Mirror Storage and First Contact™
Storing your telescope for extended periods may allow airborne contaminants and moisture to dirty the mirror. First Contact™ polymer prevents these problems. Consider coating the mirror with First Contact™ before extended storage periods or prior to road trips to dusty areas. Then peel the polymer film off the mirror when it is time to look at the sky.
Note: if the mirror is really dirty or if it may be moist, it may be prudent to clean once with First Contact™ and then recoat with fresh solution to preserve the clean mirror for extended storage.