29.10.2021 Imaging and Lunt BF blue filter rinse.

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Friday 29th 50F, cool, very breezy but clear and bright. Seeing conditions show poor transparency and rapid thermal agitation and mobility. Occasional physical movement from gusts.

11.10 Struggling for clarity and detail. AR2887 still shows signs of flaring. The overall appearance has changed considerably from yesterday. With more, small spots arranged in a chain. Yesterday's filaments are also much changed.

I was becoming depressed and paranoid about loss of image quality from staring at the cloudy blue filter on my B200S2 blocking filter. Luckily the repair was effortless.

I used a watchmaker's screwdriver to remove the blob of silicone security thread locker. Then used a small pair of dividers to completely unscrew the filter holding plate. Then I tipped the BF gently over a Kleenex tissue. Both filter and retaining disk fell out safely into the tissue.

13.05 [CET] Finally an improvement in clarity. The PST etalon is still producing a ring of darker detail. On a diagonal from roughly 10-4 o'clock.

Online advice talks about various cleaning solutions for the Lunt filter. I gently used a new cotton bud and few drops of distilled [demineralised] water. Seconds later the cloudiness was gone. I used the Kleenex to dry and lightly polish the filter without pressure.

Then replaced the glass gently in the recess in the BF. Followed by the retaining disk. The dividers were used again to snuggle the disk onto the filter without pressure. 

I wish I could say the result was miraculous. It wasn't. The soft images today are entirely the result of the poor seeing conditions.

16.00 I tried imaging again later but the seeing conditions were impossibly soft due to thin, high, speckled cloud.

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