MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

I have never deliberately tried to look at bacteria under a light microscope, so please take my notes with a grain of salt. I have very seldom seen a lone bacterium the way one would a cilliate or an amoeba, and where they were present, the slide was absolutely littered with them. So your success ma...

Simply superb photos!

Interesting points John B, and ones that certainly have me now doubting the pollen hypothesis. I must admit that I don't recall having seen pollen under the microscope for myself, and I relied maybe too much on web imagery. The subtleties noted when examining a thing for oneself is of course invalua...

Peter, thank you for your suggestion. I guess they could be pollen, but does the fact that they are flat (please see my answer to 75RR above) or that they have "stems" (most of the ones that I saw in the field of view appeared to have stem-like projections) argue against them being pollen? I don't ...

Very pretty tree like structures. Showed your pic to my better half. She now wants one for the living room.

Mmm ... I think you hit the nail on the head with it being a Lacrymarian. Thanks for the pointer.

I think it's a desmid, possibly of the genus Pleurotaenium.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleurotaenium

Very cute!

The horse round worm section shows several cells with two nucleii, presumably in a state of division. The cells in general look quite undiferentiated, and similar to each other. Will they turn into muscles and organs later on, or does the sections aways have that sort of "parenchymal" appearance?

Very pretty; that second photo totally blurs the line between science and art.

Peter wrote:... drown the insect in a 30 % solution of alcohol. This should leave the insect in a relaxed and natural attitude....

As would be I!

Cute little tyke. Thanks for the video. It was of interest to me that its eyes are not stalked, and I wonder if that is always the case with aquatic snails.

Perhaps this drone fly larva?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat-tailed_maggot

Very nice and crisp. Even the eyespot of the daughter is visible.

Beautiful shots, and presumably packed with colour coded information if you know how to interpret them. It reminds me of the preadipocyte cultures that I've made as part of a biochemistry project in the early nineties. How many dyes did you use?

Thanks. It's nice to unexpectedly learn something new.

I was taking a number of pictures of a diatom to try my hand at stacking using that ingenious program CombineZP (as was kindly recommended elsewhere). Suddenly an overzealous copepod rammed into the plant and whithout so much as a "pardon me, madam", flipped it on its side. But just look at how diff...

Those are so vivid and sharp! Hats off. They say the human eye is particularly sensitive to green ... maybe that's why algae make such photogenic models.

That is a thing beauty- and very sturdy looking. Congratulations with the new scope. I notice its quite a bit taller - I hope your chair adjusts

A very nice picture indeed. The reddish chloroplast makes me want to say Haematococcus. Also, thanks for drawing attention to "CombineZP" ... I'll be sure to check it out.

That's right, the sea water was from the same pool where I gathered the stones etc. I've now added a few grains of rice to the tank to see if the bacterial and concomitant wildlife count can be boosted a bit.

Removed the slides, wiped the underside, and had a look. For an extended examination, I had to use a cover glass, otherwise all I ended up seeing after three minutes were salt crystals. Here are my finds (my classification is, of course, open to correction): Arthropods http://i1068.photobucket.com/a...

I particularly like that final photograph of the algae - some fine detail in there. What set up do you use to take photographs through your bigger scope? Thanks. My no-name brand compound microscope is monocular, so when I want to take a picture, I have to remove the eyepiece and slide the camera (...

Mmm - that little USB 'scope could be the basis of a dissecting-'scope arrangement, may be a cheap alternative to a binocular? The only practical reason I can think of why this may be somewhat cumbersome is because of the shorter distance between object and lens in the usb microscope compared to th...

Thanks to all for the kind words of welcome. I feel at home already. So ... where do you guys keep the cookies?

Thank you, John! Well, I must admit that I tend to enjoy simply glaring through the eyepiece without the added pressure of having to come up with acceptable photographs, but here are a few attempts nevertheless. http://i1068.photobucket.com/albums/u446/Littledogstar/4_zpsenwazyvb.jpg?t=1427559087 ht...

Wow that's awesome! What luck, and what a very pretty little creature.

75RR wrote:Interesting way to get a sample on a slide!

True. Its efficacy remains to be seen...

I've set up a small (about 5 liter) marine tank about two weeks ago. This was furnished with some pebbles, gravel, old shells and a blade of seaweed - and of course whatever organisms were clinging to these at the time - scooped from a rocky pool at the coast. I also added an air-stone to induce som...

... or rather, the ones I ended up with during the years. Not the coolest and most modern collection of instruments, to be sure, but boy do they get used!