MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

Nice detail on the mouthparts Bob, not easy chasing those around under the scope.

Like how you've highlighted the geometry of the second one Wes, nice work as always.

Keep at it you'll soon get into the swing of identifying stuff you see. This is a good reference to get you underway: http://www.plingfactory.de/Science/GruK ... e-TL3.html

If you can find an area with floating pondweed, algae, or submerged plants, try grabbing some and gently squeezing the water out into a collection vessel. You could do this at several collection sites and keep notes of what you find at each. Should also aid in hunting other microbes for future study...

A rotifer (Dissotrocha aculeata) being trolled by a nematode. I'm sure it wasn't the nematodes intention, but comical to observe
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I use Zeiss Neofluars (16x and 40x) and have been very happy with them. The photo eyepiece I use for video/photo crops the view significantly so planarity is not an issue for that. Through the binocular eyepieces field curvature is only noticeable at the edges of the FOV which I seldom pay attention...

Yes, not pretty to look at but the critters love it. Btw, leave any top-up water in a jug next to the tank for a few hours, that way It'll be at the same temp. Good luck with the project, keep us updated grahamma.

Cheers all, working on a flash illumination half mirror rig so hopefully future attempts will be a tad crisper.
Objectives used:
Zeiss Jenna APO 6.3x for shot 2
Zeiss Neofluar 16x for 1 & 4
Zeiss Jenna ApoPlan 25x for 3rd

Citric Acid and Sodium Metabisulphite. No coverslip, air dried, 70/30 water/methanol base.
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--snip-- I saw someone post about a small aquarium with a bubbler running a few hours and occasional fish food additions. Probably my post grahamma. The tank is 18 months old now and doing well. Tank contents all came from lake/pond (silt, root mass. stones, plants, water squeezed from aquatic plan...

Excellent catch Michael, interesting to watch it strip the contents of the ciliate, never seen that before. Good work.

All So learning my new scope I'm deathly afraid of using the 100x not wanting to mess with oil (irony of all things considering where I work lol). I noticed everyone mentioning changing the 100x with a 60x objective so my question to other sw380 users is which 60x is Parfocal with the existing set ...

Thanks for the pyrenoid remnants info' Wes. No Idea about the pore-like structures (pits?), wish I'd took a better image now.

Devoid of life but I'm curious about the oval structures present in the dead cell walls. Cell wall ruptures or something else? Image snapped at high ISO in video mode, sorry for the graininess. Thoughts?

Nice catch and video Wes.

Nice printer! I can only imagine how many editing/printing cycles you went through. I think my humble CR-10 or Ender 2 would flatly refuse those threads. Thanks for the further info' and well done once again.

Fantastic design and print work patta. What printer/nozzle dia'/layer height did you use?

Circular polarising stage?

My critter tank is full of them. Nothing more than lake mud with some root mass, rocks, pond weed, and lake water all collected from weedy margins. Fed with a pinch of fish food once a week. A large wide-mouth jar should suffice. No direct sunlight.
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Ascorbic acid under polar illumination. Slides produced both with open evaporation of a saturated solution, and heat melted under a cover slip. Heat needs to be applied gradually when melting powdered ascorbic acid as it quickly decomposes if applied too rapidly. Crystals can take up to a week to fu...

75RR the likely origin of this is your monitor's internal power supply. In order to achieve the voltages and switching speed needed the internal PSU has switching transformers which convert both voltage and frequency. If not properly filtered or the power supply is failing, high voltage, high frequ...

75RR the likely origin of this is your monitor's internal power supply. In order to achieve the voltages and switching speed needed the internal PSU has switching transformers which convert both voltage and frequency. If not properly filtered or the power supply is failing, high voltage, high freque...

Menthol is a bit slower to form crystals than others I've tried 75RR. The uncovered samples are the quickest and can be observed growing but quite slowly. The covered samples are very slow to crystallise, this is day 2 and have only progressed marginally since the top image was taken.

1st pic unmodified polarised illumination. Menthol dissolved in ethanol, a drop placed on slide and coverslip added. Crystals have formed around the edges of the coverslip and are now beginning to extend under the coverslip after 24hrs. This is a shot of that progression, I hope more will form in th...

Lovely detail and colours.

What an odd looking critter ID?

Dissolved in isopropyl alcohol. Polarised illumination using cheap plastic film for the upper filter, and a linear camera lens filter over the illuminator.
Objective: Zeiss Jena 6.3x apo
Microscope: Vickers M17
NFK 3.3x photo eyepiece

Nice work, thanks for sharing.

Yes Bob this mod would have little benefit in illumination systems with a fixed diffuser in the light path, possibly a marginal increase in brightness. The example above is also a worst case scenario for the (full Kohler) illumination on my microscope, normally the diffuser would be deployed at 4x a...

Lovely oblique/brightfield images. I know DIC is often the desired method for these subjects, but I still much prefer this type of shot. Thanks for sharing.