Removing dust from lens

[astoc]

A fair bit of dust has gathered on the lens of our celestron 40mm plossl, and probably on the objective of the refractor. I'm going to try doing a few afocal shots tonight and I'm wondering if it would do more harm than good to 'wipe' clean this glass.

John

[jgs001]

Don't worry about the objective... it's better to use an air blower of some sort, like a rocket blower, before wiping to shift any big scratchy bits. I use a rocket blower, followed by Baader Optical Wonder Fluid. It works great.

[astoc]

But can I safely wipe the EP with a glasses (spectacle) cleaning cloth? I don't have any cleaning fluid about at all so I was literally going to blow on it and then give it a wipe.

After years of quickly wiping with a t-shirt (I know, I know, i'm terrible) the main lens on my fuji S7000 is a little lacking in coating on certain areas. Thankfully that camera is now getting on 10 years old, so i'm not too bothered, but I certainly dont want to get into bad habits with EP's and scopes.

Yet ANOTHER John! When will it end! lol

John

[jgs001]

John... it's such a good name ...

Don't actually blow on it, that can leave a coating of saliva on the glass. I don't think, for afocal, you'd even notice the dust, it might decrease the contrast a bit, but that's it. If it's just big chunks use a blower and leave it at that. I normally only use the cleaning fluid when I've managed to actually touch the glass through my normal clumsiness.

[John]

I'd be a bit careful what you touch the lenses with - some optical cloths are better than others. For now I'd blow the dust off, then invest in some Baader Optical Wonder fluid and the Baader micro-fibre cloth (First Light Optics sell them). I've just got these and they are excellent - I've cleaned the eye lenses of my Tele Vue eyepieces with them and they have come up like new

[arad85]

LensPens are also quite good too

[astoc]

Thanks guys, i'll make do I think until I can get a blower and/or some fluid/cloth.

John