How to Clean Your Telescope
Now is a good time to think about creating a policy for the cleaning of your library telescope to be sure it’s sanitary and not spreading germs. Cleaning the lenses of your telescope requires a special cleaning kit. Luckily, there are some great resources out there about how to clean the lenses of your Orion Telescopes. This short video from Orion is a helpful guide.
How to Clean Touchable Surfaces
But it’s also important to clean the touchable surfaces of your library telescope. The CDC recommends cleaning and disinfecting surfaces and objects that are touched often. This means sanitizing objects, such as desks, countertops, doorknobs, computer keyboards, faucet handles, phones, and hands-on learning items, such as telescopes.
To clean the touchable parts of your telescope, use a sanitary wipe or disinfectant to gently clean the surfaces of the telescope. DO NOT use this wipe on the telescope lenses, however (see link above for how to clean telescope lenses). Disinfectants work by using chemicals to kill germs, which can lower the risk of spreading infection.
For disinfection, diluted household bleach solutions, alcohol solutions with at least 70% alcohol, and common EPA-registered household disinfectants should be effective, according to the CDC. Never mix household bleach with ammonia or any other cleanser.
How to Prepare your Own Disinfectant
The CDC offers the following easy tip for making your own disinfectant.
Prepare a bleach solution:
- Mix 5 tablespoons (1/3rd cup) bleach per gallon of water
Or, for smaller quantity:
For more information, visit the website of the CDC.
Click here for Environmental and Cleaning Recommendations from the CDC.
