MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

Welcome Fiddlercrab. I am located in a rural area 30 miles or so south of Portland, so we share fauna, weather, moss flora, etc. I am retired with an interest in freshwater gastrotrichs. Good luck with the grandkids. Mine are still too young for a real microscope.

Thank you.

I just finished cleaning the field iris on an Orthoplan following the procedure suggested above by MicroBob. Three thoughts. (1) There may be shims under the iris/mirror housing screw holes, so beware when removing the housing and note the location of any shims so they can be replaced in the right s...

Doesn't look like an amoeba. Could perhaps be an alga or a moss protonema.

On older scopes from film camera days I've seen ocular reticles that bore a rectangle that I inferred approximated what an attached 35mm film camera would "see." My Microphot has a similar rectangular image that is superimposed on the object image when the photo tube is engaged … it works reasonably...

It definitely looks like an eriophyid mite. See photomicrographs of some eriophyid mites at https://www.google.com/search?biw=1200&bih=823&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=6lBiXOzAJKqS0PEPl6O-uAc&q=eriophyidae&oq=eriophyidae&gs_l=img.1.0.0l2.408470.408470..417594...0.0..0.1078.1078.7-1......0....1..gws-wiz-img.-UVn...

I agree with Charlie … not a tardigrade. Could be an appleleaf blister mite. Females overwinter under bud scales. I could not find a good image of an identified appleleaf blister mite, but they are shaped like your critter and are quite small.

I had cataract surgery on my left eye, and now have lots of floaters in that eye. I find that they're more bothersome at high magnification. MicroBob's approach works for me … I do critical focusing, etc. on the computer screen.

Thanks for the link. I ordered a set and spare pins.

Is anyone willing to sell a functional head for a Leitz Orthoplan. Diameter of the male fitting on the bottom of the head needs to be 49.9mm and inside diameter of ocular tubes needs to be 30mm. I don't need oculars.

I echo MicroBob's advice … hang onto the Nikon CF 60x plan apo for a while. It's a big magnification jump from 40x to 100x. Depending upon what you study, you may find the "in-between" 60x to be ideal for many observations. If not, you can sell it and buy something that works better with the Zeiss o...

I've used a mechanical stage similar if not identical to the one cited by wporter for years. I've found it useful for systematically scanning Petri dishes with a stereo scope. Not only does it facilitate systematic scanning, but it also causes less disturbance of detritus and critters … less jerky t...

The upper light path is for observing objects with reflected light. The light reaches the object through the objective. If you don't have objectives made for this type of illumination (known variously as epi-illumination, incident light illumination, reflected light illumination, etc.), the illumina...

You might find the "Thorp and Covich" volumes on North American freshwater invertebrates useful. The fourth edition came out in two volumes over the last few years, but is pretty expensive. However, the earlier, single-volume editions are quite good and are available "used" for considerably less tha...

Aceto orcein is often used to stain chromosomes. I find it useful as a quick stain for gastrotrichs. Toward the end of studying an immobile specimen I may run a very small amount of 2 percent aceto orcein under the coverslip. The pharynx, and scales on the outside of the specimen, often become clear...

Congratulations. I made a similar transition a few years ago, and highly recommend it.

Congratulations. The Orthoplan is a great microscope … a joy to use. If you're new to microscopy, be sure to download an Orthoplan manual and learn the steps for setting up each image. The multiple steps may seem like overkill, but they will help optimize your images and will soon become second natu...

Tentative answers to my own questions. "S" apparently denotes "Smith," who was a pioneer in the development of interference contrast. "T" denotes "transmitted" light interference contrast. "R" denotes incident or "reflected" light interference contrast. Andre, Mike. 2006. Leitz Orthoplan Universal L...

You didn't mention the ocular (= eyepiece) magnification. (Magnification of the scope) = (magnification of the ocular) x (magnification of the objective). I assume, without knowing, that you can get oculars of different magnifications for the Zeiss. If you had several sets of oculars (for example, 5...

To: RobBerdan, Charlie Guevara, PNWmossnerd From: Jim Kirk, aka gastrotrichman RobBerdan Thanks for the links. I looked at your website and your gastrotrich piece. Very nice images. You could easily capture sets of images that would allow you to identify gastrotrichs to species. I’m not familiar wit...

Can anyone shed light on the various versions of DIC Leitz produced for the Orthoplan? My condenser and DIC objectives are marked "Interf.-Kontrast S," with "146" in a second line on the condenser. I think there also are "R" and "T" versions. Does the alphabetical progression reflect progressive imp...

Bob -- Sorry, I'm learning how to use this site. I thought I was responding to a particular person, but guess I was responding to the topic. Regarding methods, I recommend checking the gastrotrich section in Thorp and Covich (any edition, including the one 75RR posted in this string), which has a ge...

Thanks for the attachment. It is from the third edition of Thorp and Covich, which I don't happen to have (I have the first, second, and fourth editions). The key is to the freshwater genera, which are "relatively" easy to identify. The fourth edition is divided into two volumes, with biology in vol...

I am a 73-year-old man with a serious interest in freshwater gastrotrichs (microscopic worm-like metazoans). I use primarily a Nikon Microphot with DIC and a tethered PaxCam 5+ digital camera, and a Wild M8 stereo microscope. I sometimes use a Leitz Orthoplan with DIC and a tethered PaxCam 2+ digita...