Magnified edges

[Woodash]

You got me wrong, my bad.

Scratchiness appears without slurry. Polish an edge to a 100% mirror,
and work 30 laps on a Nakayama and you may get scratches again.

If used with slurry you will get a hazy look.
I believe the hazy look derives from scratches as well, but those are so small
and random, to the eye they appear as a hazy look.
Even under slight magnification they don´t appear to the eye.
Take a look here

So: Hazy with slurry, scratches with water (after a perfect mirror)

Interesting. I read that article some time ago and just re-read it. I think he's right that the main differences are due to fixed plate vs. moving slurry abrasive:

"...the natural waterstone, the surface looks like crumpled paper, the higher mag picture shows this is due to random short scratches. The Shapton images on the other hand have large areas that are smooth and the scratches are all of a specific orientation....."

and

".....The random short scratches are consistent with a surface moving over an abrasive that is free to move (i.e. a slurry) whereas the specific direction scratches are consistent with a surface moving over a fixed abrasive. "

I was thinking about the mobile slurry thing even before I read down that far. But not only does the slurry move, it changes, becoming more of a polisher as it breaks down when approaching a ~paste - the result of smaller particle size, I assume. Again, for the Jnats that I have, I usually get most of my mileage out of a thicker slurry worked toward paste with little to no time spent on water at the end.

Now I'm curious about coticules. It's been a while since I worked with mine, but with mobile abrasive that doesn't break down....I'll have to go back and revisit that.