MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

My method is similar to what has been proposed above. Steps as follows. For each objective, 4X, 10X, 20X, etc: 1. Take a photograph of a stage micrometer and make sure you measure the width of the full circle of the field of view 2. Bring the image into an image viewer where you can count the number...

Lovely images and creatures! I have been collecting samples for years and have never found one. Not even once. I need to figure out how to get hold of these beauties.

Wow! Extremely good images Håkan Thanks! All are fantastic, and my favorite winner is the green Closterium with two Stephanodiscus sattelites near the tow ends, on a dark blue background.. Interesting that you say that, because others have said the same. Personally I find it interesting to compare ...

This fall I made a small contribution to a research project at Lunds University in Sweden. It was another member of this forum that introduced me to the project (Viktor J Nilsson). A big thank you for that Victor! The project was about keeping track of harmful alga blooms. Residents around Vombjsön ...

Thank you very much Viktor for connecting me with Dr. Rengefors! Really appreciate it! She will indeed help me to get MWC and Z8 (I think it was called). This will allow me to keep my babies alive! I will study the paper you are referring to. Very interesting topic.

Very nice shots! Did you use cover glass?

I can ask some people at work, Håkan. I work at the aquatic ecology department in Lund, there are quite a few people there who work experimentally on algae. And these photos are some of the best I've seen. Thank you so much Victor! What a great place to work. You must have access to a lot of sample...

[ Its a shame too, a liter is about $50. Maybe contact cyanobacteria researchers in Sweden.. https://assets.thermofisher.com/TFS-Assets/LSG/product-images/A1379901.jpg-650.jpg Yes, perhaps. If I knew of any... I will see if I can get something from eBay or other low cost providers. Thermofisher is ...

You might consider (unless you already have done so) BG-11 medium for culturing cyanobacteria, the variant without NaNO3 (based on a brief Google search for culturing Gloeotrichia but I suspect you've seen this too). Kind regards Wes Yes, sounds like a good idea. I have not tried BG-11. The questio...

Thank you all for your comments! Really excellent images, thank you for sharing! I have tried to keep these alive in a water sample in my garage, but they are very difficult to culture and keep alive. I have tried various temperatures and lighting conditions, but all attempts have failed so far.⁣ Ha...

During the summertime, algal bloom is a problem in Sweden as well as in many other countries. The most common algae, often called Blue-Green algae, are not really algae, but belong to another group of organisms, namely Cyanobacteria. This summer we had an explosion of cyanobacteria and other algae b...

Excellent work and images! Very inspirational.

Welcome Gregers, I am also from Stockholm. Plenty of knowledge on this site to sort out most of the issues you will face in this fascinating hobby. As mentioned, collecting Diatoms in Mälaren is fantastic and I normally drag a net after the boat when going out with my family on boat trip. Always ple...

One of my favourite species! So elegant in the water. Optimized for gliding through the water!

I totally agree with Robert here. I have also tested many microscope cameras, but I produce better images with DSLRs. One of the biggest issues I have had over the years with dedicated microscope cameras is that they require proprietary software which often is buggy and slow. Commercial software and...

Welcome Enrico! I am from Stockholm. Glad to see a fellow microscopist from Sweden here!

I have the Olympus EP50 camera on my CX23. Works very well, but you could also just mount a DSLR camera and get excellent results. If you mount a DSLR, you need a series of tubes and adapters depending on your camera sensor size. If you decided to go for the DSLR route, I can give further advice on ...

Very sharp and beautiful!

Very useful and Fantastic work! Well Done!

Great work!

Hi Håkan, great images, a lot of effort well spent! And thank you for pointing out the crucial points of the method. Everybody knows that peacock feathers are beautiful, but not that they are this beautiful. Bob +1 from me ... and one more from my wife !! MichaelG. Great! I am glad she liked them!

Thanks all!

DonSchaeffer wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 22, 2020 3:37 pm

Beautiful! Did you use polaroid?

No, I used regular light using 4 external lamps with diffusers. No pol-filters were used.

/Håkan

Posting some details from a Peacock feather I had in a drawer for a couple of years, waiting to be photographed. It turned out to be very difficult to photograph these feathers. Reflections were very difficult to eliminate which made focus stacking impossible as white spots do not have sufficient co...

Wow, amazing video of the amoeba eating the egg. Great work!

This was a very interesting read! Thank you for posting. Amazing how much drama these discoveries caused at the time. I love how he in 1703 described Paramecium with it's "little feet" and and "are perpetually beating about like a Spaniel in a Field". "Those Animalculi marked F. are also plentiful i...

Thanks all! It is truly an interesting species but difficult to culture. I have them in a petri dish, but they are not growing at the moment. Also have a batch in culture growth media with very limited growth. Trying to make a few more strands to photograph. Will try using an oil objective. These ve...

Great effect! Almost DIC-like!

This photograph shows a beautiful (and relatively large) terrestrial cyanobacteria often found growing on rocks. Stigonema Mammilosum is a short branching species that can be found as blackish crusts and biofilms on inselbergs (isolated rock hill, knob or ridge) in many places on earth. Alexander vo...

I can send close-up pictures of all sides of it, but perhaps not the inside. I don't want to take it apart.

What is the scale of each of the "vases" in Dinobryon. The vase shaped sections in the samples I collected are about 20 microns in length. I observed no internal structures, except what I observed below. In pictures, # 4, #5' where a vase structure contains large inclusions, they appear to be singl...