Cleaning and storing lenses and optics
The easy ways aren’t usually the best ways. This might be an exception. Check out the video.
This is an interesting product for cleaning and storing lenses. It’s called “First Contact”, and is made by Altechna. Paint it on like fingernail polish. Let it dry, flip the lens or optic over and paint the other side. Let it dry. If you want to store it, you’re done. If you want to clean it or bring it out of storage, peel the material off. As it comes off, it removes dust and debris on the surface.
Edmund Optics sells it. Others do too.
Here’s a white paper by the LIGO project that concludes:
Using these scatterometer graphs and corresponding average BRDF [bidirectional reflectance distribution function] count as a general measure of cleanliness, First Contact performs better than drag wiping with clean or dirty methanol.
It’s supposed to work on fingerprints too, according to this.
Hat tip to J. Stirman.
We have tested this product. I wanted to add that it only works nicely for “big” surfaces. If you try using it to clean objective lenses it doesn’t work to apply an evenly thick surface.
Josef