Can anyone recommend a good lens polish?

[RT65CB-SWL]

I have recently cleaned my Photax 400mm telephoto lens and noticed the rear lens element is/was slightly cloudy/foggy.

I removed the lens element and left it to soak in some acetone based nail polish remover for about six weeks, rotating the the lens and topping up the container every few days as it  evaporates. Before that, I left it to soak in some undiluted bleach for two weeks and then some isopropyl and rinsed of with some distilled water in between and dried with cotton wool and lens cloth/tissue.

Today I have given it a 'final' clean with some Baader Optical Wonder and it is still appears a little bit cloudy/foggy, but better than it was before.

Can anyone recommend a good lens polish? ...or should I leave it as it is?

Tnx in adv.

[Peter Drew]

Polishing a lens is the last stage of its optical manufacture prior to any subsequent coating.  Polishing now will either damage the coating or alter the figure of the lens.  I think you have probably done as much as can be done.    🙂

[RT65CB-SWL]

Thank you @Peter Drew 

Thinking back, maybe I should have added a 'before' and 'after' image. I always regret posting topics after I have completed something!

I do not think it has any coating that I can/could see, though the main objective lens element has. This too has had a 'gentle' clean with some Baader Optical Wonder.

[Louis D]

You'd want to look at the lens using a stereo microscope to try to figure out what's causing the residual fogging before doing anything more.  Is it on the surface, inside, or perhaps the cement between lenses in a group that's foggy?  Perhaps it was etched by fungus.  Perhaps it was coating failure.  Polishing is likely to just make matters worse and/or change the lens's figure.  I've got old military eyepieces with lens fogging that I can't clean off or even lessen.  I can't even figure out what caused it.  I've just accepted the status quo with them.

Edited March 22, 2022 by Louis D