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Message: <blockquote data-quote="typo" data-source="post: 3161012" data-attributes="member: 83808">I've been pondering on the licking technique that Mark and Alexis suggest. I've no doubt it's a simple but effective solution in the field, but is it really a good idea? I've done a quite a bit of microscopy, spectroscopy and several other 'oscopies in my time and the thought of applying a protein solution to a lens and letting it dry gives me the shudders. (There were occasions in the past when we would boil glass in chromic acid to get rid of stuck protein). I'm sure with an eye lens, providing subsequent cleaning is thorough, it's probably of little consequence but dry protein is sticky and is food for microbes and neither bode well in the long term. With modern glass treatments and coatings by concerns might be unwarranted but until I'm sure I think personally I'd need to be quite desperate to try it on the objectives in particular.David</blockquote>