Coating of primary and secondary mirror of Orion spaceprobe damaged after cleaning?

[NewToAstronomy]

Hi, I don’t know where else to put this, but I bought an Orion SpaceProbe 130ST telescope about a month and a half ago off of Amazon, and I’ve used it frequently without having any difficulties until recently. Recently, I decided to try and clean the primary and secondary mirrors because I noticed that some dust had managed to get on one of the two mirrors. I thought that if I tried to clean it using either the method that was provided on the Orion cleaning kit, or by using an alternative method where the mirror is submerged in lukewarm water mixed with some non-abrasive dish soap and gently cleaned with cotton balls (1 cotton ball per swipe), that it would resolve the dust issue I was having. But after having used the second method first, I noticed that there was some water residue that wasn’t going away after I let the two dry, and I decided to use the optics cleaning kit instead to see if that would clean the two mirrors better. I believe that I might have damaged the aluminum coating on the mirrors as the telescope no longer seems to be focusing well despite having collimated the telescope! Is there another way for me to resolve this issue or could I possibly get a primary and secondary mirror replacement?

I’ve attached a picture below to show how collimated the telescope is. But as you can see, the reflection is slightly blurry! Please help!

[umasscrew39]

Hi

You probably did not damage it but I suggest you post your question on the Cloudy Nights forum (https://www.cloudynights.com). You will get some great feedback on your issue. This forum is for issues related to the use of SharpCap software.

Bruce

[umasscrew39]

In re-reading your request for help and my previous suggestion to post your issue on CloudyNights, you can also contact Orion directly and ask them for help. In the past when I had to clean the secondary mirror on my Schmidth-Cassegrain telescope, I used 99% pure isopropyl alcohol, unscented Kleenex and a can of air duster.