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Couple more photos from BlueMount air sample

Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2017 6:49 am
by kit1980
Particles from an air sample (downtown Bellevue, WA, USA, May 2017), mounted in BlueMount, 100x objective, oblique bright field.
A pollen grain:

Image

Well-stained things on the left are probably parts of an old fern sporangium, long thing on the right is probably some kind of plant or alga:

Image

Re: Couple more photos from BlueMount air sample

Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2017 2:31 pm
by vasselle
Bonjour
Très belles photos
Cordialement seb

Re: Couple more photos from BlueMount air sample

Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2017 2:40 pm
by apochronaut
Really good work, Sergii! Tough subjects and tough to collect.

We just had on and off rain, for an extended period , so apple scab spores should be just in the zillions. I will try to nab some, in the near future. Have you ever tried that? is it difficult? any tips?

Re: Couple more photos from BlueMount air sample

Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2017 6:35 am
by Cyclops
Nice. How do you collect the samples?

Re: Couple more photos from BlueMount air sample

Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2017 7:26 pm
by kit1980
apochronaut wrote:Really good work, Sergii! Tough subjects and tough to collect.

We just had on and off rain, for an extended period , so apple scab spores should be just in the zillions. I will try to nab some, in the near future. Have you ever tried that? is it difficult? any tips?
Thanks.
I've found some fruits covered in Gymnosporangium (cedar-apple rust) recently, not sure if it's the same as apple scab. Haven't tried mounting these yet.
In general, I find mounting spores and pollen very easy. I don't know any real tricks. I just mount on coverslips (not slides) and try to get very thin one-particle depth layer (blow away particles with an air blower if there are too many). And I use mostly permanent mounts for these (with CytoSeal or BlueMount), because usually 100x objective is needed and it's much easier to use with a permanent mount.

Re: Couple more photos from BlueMount air sample

Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2017 7:28 pm
by kit1980
Cyclops wrote:Nice. How do you collect the samples?
Thanks!
Collecting is very easy - I just left several coverslips outside for a week.