Cleaning the camera lens

[RegularJoe]

 Been a while since I posted, and here's a question I doubt anyone asks.

My cameras are all outside... they endure rain, snow, dew and, eventually... dust.

  Moisture eventually evaporates... but... the dust.... I think it needs removed, sometimes, because if it doesn't rain... there is no moisture to wash it off.

  I've got a whole box of eyeglass "wipes"... that's what I've been using.

  This camera here seems to be the worst. I've probably took it down and cleaned it 10 times.

  This round "halo" remains in the night vision view. Can you see it? (There are some tree leaves that I still need to trim away, and they reflect some of the infrared light back at the camera...that doesn't help.)

  I used to work around photographic cameras... and I know you've got to be careful cleaning their lenses.... don't want to grind dust into the protective coatings on glass lenses.

  I know I can't see dust at the microscopic level, and I didn't use a magnifier to look at the surface of the lens before initially cleaning it....but, at a glance I never did see anything on the surface of the lens. 
  These lens wipes are slightly damp... it's not dry... hopefully it picks up the dust and absorbs it and isn't just grinding the dust into the lens surface.

  Anybody ever have the halo effect like I'm showing here?  It's too late to say "don't ever clean the camera lens'... they'll clean themselves"..

  Maybe I should just use some sort of soapy spray wash?

  OH, and PS: This camera is over 200 foot from the Netgear wireless access point! Those lights in the far distance at left of this house... my house is just to the right of those lights....the lots these houses set on are 150' deep... this camera is in a tree on the very front of this lot... 150 foot back to the alley, the wifi access point is over 75' on the other side of the alley!

[jguerdat]

I'd like to see a daytime screenshot as a point of reference. What I seem to see in your nighttime shot looks a lot like reflected IR to me so your trimming could prove very useful. I do see the "halo" but without  eliminating the possibility of reflections, it's hard to say. A simpler task could be to simply remove the camera from the mount and position it without nearby objects in view (just drop it down or rotate it down) to see if that makes a difference.

[RegularJoe]

 

[jguerdat]

So far, it appears to me to be an issue of reflected IR from the tree leaves. Have you been able to try trimming them and/or positioning the camera so the leaves are no longer in view?