MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

No problem, thanks to you and Pete for offering possible explanations. I am still on this and will report back if I discover anything.

I was using transmitted light for the observation and the incident illuminator was turned off. But I was wondering if the half-mirror in the optical path might have something to do with the flaring. Both the transmitted and incident light sources are 6 V 20 W tungsten halogen lamps. The microscope h...

Yes I was looking at a piece of paper (a postage stamp) that had a coating containing calcium carbonate and some other optical brightener that fluoresces in long-wave UV. Alas, that doesn't seem to be the problem. Following your suggestion, I took a look at a piece of uncoated and unbleached buff-co...

You are probably right, although it looks worse than I expected after accounting for all the factors. I tried stopping down both diaphragms all the way, but it didn't have any appreciable effect on the flare. I will try to find a chance to test the objective on another microscope and vice versa to s...

I am having a problem with my Nikon CF N plan apo 20/0.75 160/0.17 objective, which I recently acquired second-hand in mint condition. It produces a nice and clear transmitted bright-field image in the eyepiece with a thin section of onion root. However, when I view a piece of paper (about 100 μm th...

Thank you! That solves a mystery for me.

I'd say the objective pic you posted indicates it's older than the Nikon CF / CF N range. My goto for reminding me of the meaning of objective markings is here: https://www.microscopyu.com/microscopy-basics/microscope-objective-specifications but older objectives may not conform. Louise What's the ...

Is there an adhesive tape that is isotropic and wouldn't give a signal under a polarizing microscope, so it can be used to mount birefringent specimens for examination under polarized light?

The polarizer in my polarizing microscope has a slight greyish-blue tint (as I believe is the case for many polarizing microscopes). Does anyone know what material it's made of? I know it's not important for practical purposes but I'm curious. I read that polarizers can be made of materials such as ...

Hello, I love microscopy because it gives me endless fun exploring diverse disciplines including optics, mechanical engineering, protozoology, chemistry, geology, forensic science and others. It's a complicated and beautiful physical machine that you can tinker with and discover the technological ma...

I see! I'm afraid I'll have to leave it for another day - trying to tweak my light source at the moment!

I've deleted the spam and added some general links to get it started off. It's not that useful at the moment as most of us already know these links. I haven't given much thought to what kind of information could go on it and how it could be organized, but one potentially useful extension is to have ...