MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

I was searching information about the English manufacturer "Cooke, Troughton & Simms", so stumbled in this book "Microscope design and construction" B.O. Payne 1957 It is online at archive.org (maybe need to make a free account) Warmly recommend this book! It is only 200 pages; contains 90% of the a...

Ok I'll glue a round coverslip over it and be parsimonious with olive oil.
This project swelled from "a couple of hours" to "a couple of weekends"; hope it stops before "a couple of months".

CTS, never thought about them; weird stuff they made!

Working on it, no laser yet, but 1.2mm slide seems to be feasible. And managed to observe/measure the aperture with the "prism apertometer". After some use of the above above condenser, the main issues emerged are... Bubbles , bubbles between the condenser and the slide; so hard to get them out. And...

Gread 3D designs above! To store oversize RMS objectives I'm using large standard cases for M25 objectives, together with a 3D printed M25-RMS adapter. Amoyca shop on Aliexpress has a large selection of cases, maybe some will fit your need; the shipping and import tariffs cost more than the case its...

Those illumination methods from 100 years ago, they are amazing, and can't be found today! Great inspiration for some DIY. Guilty is somebody around that keep posting about them. I've tried this early morning "TIR", total internal reflection (without the F for fluorescence), with the sample mounted ...

ERRATA CORRIGE Sorry after a more careful look the specs declared didn't seem to be exact :oops: . Not sure what can be trusted: the design trigonometry, the DIY apertometers, or the NA inscribed on an objective? Anyway, below, that's the little plastic baby against a "big" boss. :lol: The subject i...

What kind of condenser is this and what happens when you use a slide? I presume you printed the mount. All 3D printed, apart from one piece of glass. I've made it yesterday, it is somewhat similar to the "Cassegrain" http://cnum.cnam.fr/CGI/fpage.cgi?M9975.1/32/100/119/0/0 Can easily modify the bas...

For oil immersion or TIRF; it needs to work on thin slide (0.17mm, sample between two coverslips) Gives darkfield illumination up to objective NA 1.25. Fits 39mm condenser sleeve; Height 32mm from flange; Top diameter 21mm. (Swift & Son pol scopes) ask 1000 NOK + shipping almost new no warranties ap...

That's a very neat trick
I've tried with half-stops ("3D caps") at the eyepiece, an old mod that (should) give the same result, by splitting the aperture in left & right.
But this method with the two polarizers at the objective back focal plane, looks like much cooler and easier to use.

Well, a phase telescope isn't much more than a tube with lens. (though the same can be said of any optics :lol: ) To see if it is working right, a way is to take it out from the microscope, look in it, it should focus at about 170 - 200mm distance, like a small macro telescope that is its job! When ...

Aha, no, right, the relay I've done only for the digital, no visual. Well, it is sure possible to put an eyepiece on the top, but will be pretty awkward. Anyway, scheme drawings coming at some point. And yes, the one in the photo has no iris, instead had a set of fixed apertures with different diame...

No problem, relay, I'm making the drawings, will take some time. Meanwhile, the macro as centering telescope was described here, see post #59 and #66 https://www.microbehunter.com/microscopy-forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=12402&start=30 A "4f relay" is here https://www.microbehunter.com/microscopy-forum/...

Must admit, I've got pretty outraged, but let's keep it nice, technical and not too far from oil irises. I see now, you have a pretty impressive archive of work on darkfield; I respect that; please be patient, my current obsession is aperture axial position, and I drop it in every post! The macro le...

I have been trying to enhance low birefringence specimens like Diatoms using a polarized microscopy technique developed by Dr. Michael Shribak called Polychromatic polarization - but his science paper and his patent leave out important details like what type of quarter wave plate he uses (achromati...

I don't have real darkfield experience; this summer on a thread about condenser aberrations, we found out that aperture planes usually don't match, unless sheer luck; that was for phase contrast, annulus and ring. In particular, darkfield patch stop and the iris of the Lomo 60x, won't ever be in foc...

"hard" solutions: Windows on BootCamp, then Toupview or SharpCap? Will it send the video stream to ios??
Or, mount the Iphone over the eyepiece then share the video/screen to the Mac?

Can't help with the choice, just complicate the matter: Another affordable alternative is to get a couple of objectives without iris, and equip them with funnel stop at a desired aperture. A nosepiece with many identical 40x, but different NAs! After few trials, it should become clear what aperture ...

So many questions... "Po prostu to zrób!" Here the newest "4f"; I've assembled it today with two 58mm camera objectives as relay; over a finite (and sturdy) microscope. The disk in the middle is in aperture space, can host a filter, a phase ring, an iris, those stuff. In the photo, it is a fixed ape...

Let's try also this Zander mixture! Or a mix of all the above, plus dish soap.
One open issue for all those water-base things is that they contain a lot of water, when they dry, should shrink significantly?

" Insect Microscopy", Andrew Chick, 2016. Great suggestion, I had the illusion to have read all Micscape UK archives.. instead, it appears I'm only at the 0.5%! Started reading now, Chick is using as main mountant the Chick's one (obviously), AKA modified Dioni's mountant, a water-based molasse tha...

Ok no Euparal. I'll give a try to the LOCA glue, UV curing used to glue the screen of phones. Apparently it is water based. Cheap too. let's see.

The Swift, actually I've never brought it outside.
I think should work well, was really compact and sturdy; 40x usable and sharp.

But an hassle is that it is inverted (as the nikon) and without mechanical stage, so the coverslip tends to fall, move, hit the stage etc.

Why marriage-wrecking? It is a perfect birthday gift for the partner! Forever love!

P.S. I've just sold a "Swift fieldmaster", that is less cool but practically the same, for a more reasonable 150$... Maybe made in the same factory as the Nikon

Welcome! One way - not sure if truly optimal, but cheap - is the simple afocal: to use one of the two visual oculars, then look into it with the Nikon, with a Nikon 50mm (or 60) objective. Still need some tube and screw adapters; one to hold the eyepiece in the photo port; the other to fit the 50mm ...

Great, I've always wondered what was happening there! Images are worth thousand words

If maybe you could cut a thinner section and higher magnification of the parasite-host interface?
Easy to ask!

Maybe worth a try.How much does Euparal shrinks when dried?

Here too was a fan of super-wide telescope eyepieces, and of course they went on the microscope. I think telescope eyepieces today are of higher quality than the microscope ones: The telescope eyepieces are designed to work at f/8 and maybe f/4; microscope ones, f/20.... Note at the link in posf #4 ...

Yes inject or the like absolutely no encasing in resin. or maybe? Here we need the external surface free on air, while the inner gets filled with something transparent and solid this is the struggle. Water works but don't last, and refractive index is off. Maybe encasing in resin + peel away the out...

End result would be a piece insect skin, a bit transparent, filled, mounted on a slide. but still on its shape, no coverslip to squash it. Large pieces, like 2-6mm. Half bee cut lengthwise for example. Wax coating, my impression is that it is somehow still there, the skin pieces are still very hydro...

Is there some mountant that is Hydrophilic (adhere to wet surfaces) but also Oleophobic (does not adhere to oily surfaces)? And dries/cures in some feasible way. The application for it, is to Fill the inside of insects (cleaned with NaOH) with this resin/mountant. Only the inside is filled. With an ...