Posts of the Category: Observations and pictures
Here I present some photomicrographic images that I made. All pictures are copyrighted and may not be used.
Focus Animation of a Water Flea
Be patient as the picture loads…. The top image is a focus animation of a water flea, the bottom one a rocking GIF made with Picolay. Both images give a sense of depth perception. It appears as if there are two smaller organisms carried in the back of the mother. The dark spots are the [...]
Animated GIF of the leg of a honey bee (tarsus)
Be patient as the picture loads. It is an animated GIF showing the claws of the leg of a honey bee (the tarsus). I have used the free image editing software GIMP to make this picture. The steps are as follows: Take a series of pictures of different focus. Make sure that they are numbered [...]
Testing the iPad camera
The two images show the fresh water polyp Hydra sp taken with the iPad held in front of the eyepiece (40x and 400x total magnification). The images were uploaded directly and not edited (except resize).
Wing of a Fly
The wing of flies and bees (of hymenoptera in general) are thin and membranous. Place the dry wing into Euparal mounting medium and place a further drop on top of the wing, before adding the cover glass. Wet mounts should also work well. Notice the veins and the numerous small hair, which cover the wing.
Bird Feathers
Bird feathers are relatively easy specimens to observe. Take a feather, cut off a small piece of the feather with scissors and embed it into a hydrophobic mounting medium, such as Euparal. Alternatively you can make a dry mount, and use no mounting medium at all (use adhesive tape to fix the cover glass to [...]
Dandelion pollen in dark-field
The pollen grains from a dandelion (Taraxacum sp.) were collected and air-mounted (no liquid mounting medium used). Eleven separate images were stacked together to increase the depth of field and to produce the final image. The color contrast was then adjusted. Dark-field patch stop was used.
Blood cells of a Frog and of a Human
The red blood cells of amphibians contain contain a nucleus, which is visible as a dark purple dot in the center of each cell. In contrast, the red blood cells of mammals do not possess a nucleus. The two pictures show both types of blood photographed with a 40x achromatic objective and a 2.5x photo [...]
Starch grains of a Potato
The pink oval structures are potato starch grains. One of the easiest and fastest way to observe starch grains is to scratch some sample off the surface of a potato with a sharp object and then adding some diluted iodine solution. Further Reading
