A Dirty Mirror

Work is progressing on this week's re-aluminumizing of the primary mirror for the Palomar Observatory's 60-inch telescope. Yesterday the mirror was removed from the telescope and today it was transported to the dome of the 200-inch telescope where it will be washed stripped and re-coated. Work on that is taking place as I type.

I have lots of pictures to go through and more to take, but here is a shot of the dirty mirror as it looked just before lunch today.


If you click to enlarge the image you can see various water spots (likely from dripping condensation that dripped off of the dome on to the glass sometime in the last 2 years) on the surface of the glass.