Mite ?

[75RR]

Plan 16x/0.35, 530µm diagonal incl appendages, Oblique, COL, Darkfield and Pol, 12, 10, 6 and 5 image stacks in Photoshop.

Came across this recently deceased beastie while looking for yesterday's Copepods - unfortunately there was a piece of detritus that lay across it, spoiling the composition somewhat.

[wmodavis]

MITEy nice. And thanks for the comparisons and other technical details. Helps a guy like me put it all in perspective.

[75RR]

Thanks wmodavis :)

[billbillt]

I don't know if it is a dust mite, but the photos are VERY good!..
BillT

[charlie]

Very cool subject and demonstration of techniques 75RR.

I was surprised that it was magnified 160x.

[gekko]

Excellent. All are very beautiful images. I think this is indeed a mite, and I suspect that it might be a chigger (if so, take care that there are not others that might bite you-- not fun).

[75RR]

Thanks billbillt, charlie and gekko

I don't know if it is a dust mite ...

Will go with some kind of mite!

I was surprised that it was magnified 160x.

Total magnification around 500x

I suspect that it might be a chigger...

Looked them up, hope not!

[vasselle]

Bonjour
Très belles séries.
Je penserais pour un Acarien.
Cordialement seb

[75RR]

Thanks vasselle

[JimT]

Having grown up in the South and having been bitten by chiggers too many times - Red Bugs as we used to call them it is finally nice to see what the little @#*^%'s look like.

Nice images in the different lighting and interesting subject.

JimT

[75RR]

I was surprised that it was magnified 160x.

Total magnification around 500x

After reading charlie's comment I calculated the total magnification based on the size of the mite and the final size of the image.

In this case the mite was 530µm, measuring the diagonal and including the extremities.
The size of the mite in the final image was 280mm, so dividing 280 by 0.53 = 528 or about 500x when rounded down.

It was only later that it occurred to me that the number was a little high.

Since I used a Zeiss Plan 16x with an NA of 0.35 the max magnification should not really exceed 0.35 x 1000 = 350x
This meant the 500x was about 150x into empty magnification.
I decided to reduce the width of the image from 30cm to 20cm thereby bringing the total length of the mite down to 190mm which divided by 0.53 = 360x, which is more in line with the recommended 350x

[75RR]

Thanks JimT

[AndyMilman]

Does anybody know what this is? It looks similar to the dust mite, but I've found them in the debris filtered out of my fish tank.