Search found 31 matches

by SutherlandDesmids
Thu Dec 20, 2018 2:50 pm
Forum: Microscopy accessories
Topic: Dust Covers
Replies: 5
Views: 5365

Re: Dust Covers

Thank you all -- I have a couple of pure cotton well-washed pillow-cases, so I will try cutting a hole in one. Failing that a half-sheet. @MicroBob -- Yes, that's right, although I had no idea it was a new idea. I am a keen if rather bad sketcher of scientific subjects, it's a discipline I got from ...
by SutherlandDesmids
Wed Dec 19, 2018 10:37 pm
Forum: Microscopy accessories
Topic: Dust Covers
Replies: 5
Views: 5365

Dust Covers

Does anyone know of a source of dust-covers made to size for a microscope? I'll have no difficulty with my new Optiphot at present but I intend to add an Optizoom and a drawing-tube in the next few months and I've never seen a cover meant to include a drawing tube. A camera apparatus could be, I thi...
by SutherlandDesmids
Mon Dec 17, 2018 10:43 pm
Forum: Beginner's corner
Topic: I was looking to get more out my microscope.
Replies: 9
Views: 7056

Re: I was looking to get more out my microscope.

I'd advise you to take up a special field. ''Science'' is an immense subject and has been far, far too large for one mind to master since it properly began. You're interested in rotifers, so I'd make that my speciality were I you. I regret I have never cultured rotifers, so I defer to the far more e...
by SutherlandDesmids
Mon Dec 17, 2018 12:42 am
Forum: For forum members who want to buy and sell equipment
Topic: Student microscopes - Leica BME, AO/Reichert 160, and Swift 400 w/ phase contrast
Replies: 2
Views: 3188

Re: Student microscopes - Leica BME, AO/Reichert 160, and Swift 400 w/ phase contrast

I hope you don't mind a non-commercial message, but that is a thoroughly decent thing you plan to do.
by SutherlandDesmids
Sun Dec 16, 2018 10:47 pm
Forum: Miscellaneous
Topic: Too much plastic?
Replies: 12
Views: 8239

Re: Too much plastic?

:x This sort of thing is, to my mind, near to the criminal. If he had the choice between a blurred and uninterpretable image representing science and reason or a sword-brandishing goblin in luridly bright colours and full 3D representing stupid popular culture, which would the average child choose? ...
by SutherlandDesmids
Sun Dec 16, 2018 1:18 am
Forum: Miscellaneous
Topic: 1650 Pelican Case
Replies: 14
Views: 10345

Re: 1650 Pelican Case

I regret to say I have always used a plastic cooler-box. A student microscope, wrapped in a green velvet dust-cover, fitted very well. Then again, the only moving my microscopes have ever had is to go from one rented house to another in the back of my dear mother's car (in the boot, NEVER on the sea...
by SutherlandDesmids
Fri Dec 14, 2018 12:04 am
Forum: My microscope
Topic: My brand new Zeiss Primo Star
Replies: 5
Views: 5678

Herr Zeiss und Gesellschaft seem to have entered into the spirit of the season with Christmas lights on their microscopes :mrgreen: ! Joking aside, do the lights have a function? Some sort of integrated brightness display, akin to the Optiphot 66 I imagine. Yours is a beautiful microscope aesthetica...
by SutherlandDesmids
Mon Dec 10, 2018 7:52 pm
Forum: Camera systems and imaging
Topic: Nikon cameras for Optiphot -- beginner's questions.
Replies: 8
Views: 6578

Re: Nikon cameras for Optiphot -- beginner's questions.

My sincerest thanks. I have been digging a little on Nikon's website -- of the full frame cameras given there the D750 is the lowest grade to have EFCS, but the price is prohibitive. It would actually be significantly cheaper to buy a lesser camera and one of the made-to-order eight-hundred Euro ada...
by SutherlandDesmids
Sat Dec 08, 2018 7:36 pm
Forum: Camera systems and imaging
Topic: Nikon cameras for Optiphot -- beginner's questions.
Replies: 8
Views: 6578

Nikon cameras for Optiphot -- beginner's questions.

The very kind man who has sold me the Optiphot also sent photographs of an adapter he has enclosed, a Nikon UFX unit with the analogue parts removed and rendered light-tight to serve as a digital adapter, and also a 5x projection eyepiece. In theory a Nikon full-frame camera will suit very well to r...
by SutherlandDesmids
Mon Dec 03, 2018 10:52 pm
Forum: Pictures and Videos
Topic: more Biddulphia pulchella
Replies: 16
Views: 8193

Re: more Biddulphia pulchella

Sincerest thanks. Unfortunately I am rather dangerous, the half-learned amateur. Somehow I have toddled through fifteen years of botanising either as pupil or amateur without noticing that rule. Again, as the above poster is well aware it's not absolute either that a zoological type bears such a nam...
by SutherlandDesmids
Mon Dec 03, 2018 1:46 pm
Forum: Pictures and Videos
Topic: more Biddulphia pulchella
Replies: 16
Views: 8193

Re: more Biddulphia pulchella

It was transferred to Biddulphia by S.F. Gray in 1821, but with an invalid change of the specific name to pulchella. Thus we have Biddulphia pulchella S.F. Gray nom. illeg. [nomen illegitimum]. Know very little (read nothing) about botanical nomenclature, but I was under the impression that the dou...
by SutherlandDesmids
Sun Dec 02, 2018 9:17 pm
Forum: Pictures and Videos
Topic: more Biddulphia pulchella
Replies: 16
Views: 8193

Re: more Biddulphia pulchella

Failed to catch the latin translation ... When I do try and translate latin names I am always surprised at how prosaic they are. I fear that this naming may actually be more prosaic than I suggested :cry: http://www.algaebase.org/search/species/detail/?species_id=37290 ... but it was nice whilst it...
by SutherlandDesmids
Sat Dec 01, 2018 12:29 am
Forum: Pictures and Videos
Topic: more Biddulphia pulchella
Replies: 16
Views: 8193

Re: more Biddulphia pulchella

@ MichaelG -- A fellow Latinist perhaps? A beautiful language and v. useful for biology though not for the lazy! As we used to say at school: Latin is a dead tongue, Dead as dead can be -- It killed the Ancient Romans And now it's killing me! Biddulphia pulchella is a beautiful little thing, as you ...
by SutherlandDesmids
Sat Dec 01, 2018 12:20 am
Forum: Resources (online, books etc.)
Topic: Copepoda links in archive.org
Replies: 4
Views: 4794

Re: Copepoda links in archive.org

For British users, Robert Gurney's wonderful monograph on the ''British Fresh-water Copepoda'', three volumes, Ray Society (used to be my go-to book if I want more detail than the FBA's wonderful key) used to be on archive.org, three volumes, a brilliant book. I can't trace it now, but my internet s...
by SutherlandDesmids
Sat Dec 01, 2018 12:08 am
Forum: Pictures and Videos
Topic: Moss Protonema
Replies: 6
Views: 3663

Re: Moss Protonema

Often times I wonder when a filamentous organism is an algae thalus...vrs. a moss protonema...your kind link gives me useful content for my observations of freshwater communities. Chloroplast morphology should be a great help in a doubtful case -- none of the septate Chlorophyte algae possess numer...
by SutherlandDesmids
Wed Nov 28, 2018 12:00 pm
Forum: Pictures and Videos
Topic: Scone Surprise - YUK
Replies: 13
Views: 5297

Re: Scone Surprise - YUK

These look like bunches of whatever a fungus has for 'flowers'? If my memory serves me they're conidiophores bearing conidia, or asexual, wind-borne spores, produced by mitosis so no, they're not analogous to a flower as they are purely a means of asexual propagation, in terms of the Plant Kingdom ...
by SutherlandDesmids
Sun Nov 25, 2018 1:59 pm
Forum: Pictures and Videos
Topic: Moss Protonema
Replies: 6
Views: 3663

Re: Moss Protonema

I've glanced through the paper, it seems most interesting. I will get it printed out at the town library and study it properly when I've more time to devote to it. My sincere thanks.
by SutherlandDesmids
Sun Nov 25, 2018 12:40 pm
Forum: Pictures and Videos
Topic: Moss Protonema
Replies: 6
Views: 3663

Re: Moss Protonema

Yes, it's fascinating, isn't it? I will never tire of lower plant forms of all types. Unfortunately the mosses have never been my special field, but it is absolutely protonema. A nineteenth-century textbook of mine indicates a good place for protonema-hunting ''the green stuff so often seen in flowe...
by SutherlandDesmids
Sun Nov 25, 2018 8:49 am
Forum: Miscellaneous
Topic: Microbes Belonging to New Kingdom of Life Discovered
Replies: 9
Views: 6637

Re: Microbes Belonging to New Kingdom of Life Discovered

I'm not sure about the phrasing of the title of the article, which implies that the Hemimastigophora were literally discovered for the first time by Miss Eglit, which is of course untrue and contradicted by the article. [ .... ] Yes, regrettably over-dramatised in the News headlines ... but at leas...
by SutherlandDesmids
Sat Nov 24, 2018 11:05 pm
Forum: Pictures and Videos
Topic: Assorted Marine Diatoms
Replies: 6
Views: 3725

Re: Assorted Marine Diatoms

A series of beautiful stacked photomicrographs of a few of the abundant and exquisite marine Bacillariophyta (Kingdom Chromista, though my taxonomy may be rather outdated). A real treat to see the living ''plant'' (a term used in the very broadest and most inaccurate sense) as a complement to the ex...
by SutherlandDesmids
Sat Nov 24, 2018 10:16 pm
Forum: Miscellaneous
Topic: Garstang's Zoological Verses
Replies: 2
Views: 2990

Re: Garstang's Zoological Verses

Thank you. I'm glad you like them. Sadly whimsy is not too common these days. My old teacher Alan E. Joyce was a writer of comic botanical and zoological verse as well, I must try to dig some of his out.
by SutherlandDesmids
Sat Nov 24, 2018 7:01 pm
Forum: Introduce yourself
Topic: Hello from Sutherland
Replies: 10
Views: 5761

Re: Hello from Sutherland

Extremely useful. Thank you very much. Thus, allowing for four objectives, we would have c. 1100 for DIC omitting the plan objectives and the stand. The objectives bought would naturally depend on the prism sliders I acquired. Would c. 2100-2500 cover it, I wonder? It's a good deal of money, but not...
by SutherlandDesmids
Sat Nov 24, 2018 4:57 pm
Forum: Introduce yourself
Topic: Hello from Sutherland
Replies: 10
Views: 5761

Re: Hello from Sutherland

Thank you. Most useful. Thank you for the Zetopan advice. It's a very good and well-fitted out large research microscope in extremely high regard (described once by a chap I know as a Rolls-Royce). Also, I know I can afford it, as I narrowly missed one with brightfield and phase for £345.00 in the S...
by SutherlandDesmids
Sat Nov 24, 2018 4:52 pm
Forum: Miscellaneous
Topic: Garstang's Zoological Verses
Replies: 2
Views: 2990

Garstang's Zoological Verses

I have not been able to trace a copy of the book, but, as some light relief, I give two of Walter Garstang's comic zoological poems (yes, the Garstang of Garstang's Hypothesis). ''The Ballad of the Veliger, or how the Gastropod got his Twist'' Note the wry reference to the absurd Lamarckian theory o...
by SutherlandDesmids
Sat Nov 24, 2018 4:34 pm
Forum: Introduce yourself
Topic: Hello from Sutherland
Replies: 10
Views: 5761

Regrettably I don't have a photography setup -- it's one reason I need a new microscope! I hope this link to DIADIST, a useful online database, will slake your thirst Yes, DIC belongs rather firmly in the category of Pipe Dreams. It's the Sangreal of microbiology for a good reason -- it's hard to fi...
by SutherlandDesmids
Sat Nov 24, 2018 4:24 pm
Forum: Miscellaneous
Topic: Microbes Belonging to New Kingdom of Life Discovered
Replies: 9
Views: 6637

Re: Microbes Belonging to New Kingdom of Life Discovered

I'm not sure about the phrasing of the title of the article, which implies that the Hemimastigophora were literally discovered for the first time by Miss Eglit, which is of course untrue and contradicted by the article. We have been aware of them for a very long time but only now have we subjected t...
by SutherlandDesmids
Fri Nov 23, 2018 11:37 pm
Forum: Pictures and Videos
Topic: Miscellaneous Photomicrographs
Replies: 13
Views: 6722

Re: Miscellaneous Photomicrographs

Thank you. These are really quite lovely. I have yet to begin taking photomicrographs, this sort of thing is an inspiration.
by SutherlandDesmids
Fri Nov 23, 2018 10:11 pm
Forum: My microscope
Topic: My Zeiss Microscopes
Replies: 143
Views: 125894

Re: My Zeiss Microscopes

A splendid collection, especially the Universal. DIC too!
by SutherlandDesmids
Fri Nov 23, 2018 10:05 pm
Forum: Pictures and Videos
Topic: Another Moss Dissection
Replies: 23
Views: 9597

Re: Another Moss Dissection

This really is a wonderful series. It might be beneficial for beginners to state, if my memory serves me, that acrocarpous mosses bear the sporophyte on the end of the axis of growth, parallel to a vertical growth habit, whereas the pleurocarpous mosses bear the sporophytes on the sides of the axis ...