MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

Most of the discussions centre around biological specimens, who’d have guessed that on a discussion board called ‘Microbehunter.com’? My son asked if we could get some prepared petrographic microscope slides and I was just wondering if anyone knows of an online source I could buy some from.

Thanks,

Kevin

A fair amount of work goes into creating a petrographic slide. Find suitable rock - slab in very thin on a $$$ saw - polish it dead smooth - adhere it to a slide - polish the other side - get it down to 30 microns thick. There are affordable Chinese and Indian sources for sets of these slides, but it is somewhat a matter of getting what you pay for. Your son might better enjoy a single topnotch petrographic slide rather than a dozen poorly polished.

You might check eBay listings, accompanied by good photographs, as a guide to quality. You can also find various fossils, coal fossils, and so on.

Chemical crystals are another far easier and more affordable DIY option.

Everything surrounding petrographic microscopes is weirdly expensive, probanly because geologists don't get nearly as many microscopes as biologists and instead of swapping them out they hold onto their microscopes until they die. Slides are usually expensive too. I am kicking myself because I can't find the ones I had made for my master's thesis and I don't own any others.

Just to add, some affordable meteorite slides ($25 or so) show up on eBay fairly frequently. As with geological slides and chemical crystals, they look amazing between polarizers. It could be cool to talk with your son about the formation of elements in the early days of the universe and how a meteorite is a sort of time machine landing on Earth after a round trip around the solar system or galaxy of as much as 4.5 billion years.

Micrometeorites are another thing - sometimes found (for example) in gutters that haven't been cleaned out.

The ease of equipping a stereo or compound microscope varies with the model, but most compound microscopes and some stereo microscopes can be set up for simple polarization (just the cool images, not the quantitative analysis) for under $50.

Thanks for info. I’ll keep an eye on eBay.

Yeah, the specific petrographic ones tend to be realllllly pricey but don't let it discourage you. Cheap simple polarization will do what you need.

Scarodactyl wrote: ↑

Sat Dec 02, 2023 6:30 am

Yeah, the specific petrographic ones tend to be realllllly pricey but don't let it discourage you. Cheap simple polarization will do what you need.

I did buy a sheet of linear polarising plastic as well as having two radial polarising filters for my camera. Cutting the plastic sheet into two works better with viewing crystals and such. We are looking on eBay for some petrographic slides, my son is really interested in geology and I don’t mind spending a little money, I like to support his interest in science, I’d rather him look through a microscope than a screen just playing games!

I will be reluctantly selling off a large collection of petrographic slides soon, which includes some very large (X2 size of normal slide) meteorite (ll3 with small chondrules) slides that I specifically ordered.

I am planning to downsize my slide collection, so keep an eye.