MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

Hmm, this is what Chrome returns,

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What is your x63 objective please? Hi, that objective (sold back in 2019 together with a superb Orthoplan when I upgraded to an Olympus BX40) was a surprisingly good performer. The Orthoplan is nominally a 170mm TL 'scope and the 63x is a 160mm TL objective for use with the smaller, later 160mm Lei...

75RR wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 03, 2021 12:53 pm

mrsonchus wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 03, 2021 12:25 pm

Whereabouts are you, if you're in the U.K. I'm about to list my beautiful Olympus BX50 with just about any add ons you need except DIC as I never could afford it!

Have you upgraded again?

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I ordered what looked like a nice BH2 from Ebay. Should have known better. It arrived with a badly gummed up and gritty focusing mechanism that only move d the stage intermittently. Needless to say, it's on it's way back to the seller. So I'm still in the market for a good, non-Chinese microscope I...

I use a pink finger nail UV hardener (full hand) and a Convoy UV flashlight for this purpose. With sunlight I was not successful. In case you are looking for alternative mounting techniques Walter Dioni has written some articles for the micscape magazine (free, internet) and assembled them to a sma...

This rings true from my experience with c-mount camera on my Olympus (infinite) 'scope's. The option that uses the bottom (U-SPT) phototube (onto the top of the trinocular-head's telan lens) , into the top of which sits a projection eyepiece then on top of that the first-gen older c-mount adapter (U...

For video - yes it's very handy indeed for use with my stereo 'scope - the remote control is so useful, no need for a computer link. The camera will record to a microSD card and the live-view is absolutely lag-free on an accompanying monitor on my desk where the stereo 'scope is. Takes a bit of gett...

Here's an example of 4K HDMI camera video...

NuMount, Histomount, Omnimount, all are synthetic resins and I've used them all, any one of these will do the job but it's essential that your subject is dry - in the sense of containing absolutely no water that is.

Very interesting selection and at a good crop for a good-look.

More very interesting material Don, I really like your easy-paced narrative too. So many videos now are 'presented' by a rabid-sounding contributor who seems to be more interested in being a 'personality' than in the actual content. Very nice to just watch the creatures go by in your videos, thanks ...

Looks a real beauty - congratulations! 2hrs on a box of slides! Ha!
Wait 'til you really get started with this lovely 'scope - 2hrs will just about be enough for one part of one slide!

Good luck and please keep us posted.

They look like trichomes to me, with a purpose of course, but I think trichomes, non-glandular by the look of things....

Some very useful and interesting points have popped-up in this thread's contributions, always good to take a peek or two I find.

Hi Apo', yes your observations definitely agree with my own experience, although I don't use DF a lot with my compound 'scope. I do indeed find that it's effect is far better (i.e. less flare, glare and scatter) with more strongly stained (more opaque) slides, as you know, of the resin-mounted micro...

Not my area, but what an interesting observation. Very interesting also to learn of it's ability to detach and as said, search for more favourable conditions befor growing a new stalk! Would be great to be able to make permanent-mounts of the different stages/forms of such a creature..... Very nice ...

Excellent video! The quality really does make me wonder why bother with all the stress & difficulty of trying to get decent video from any sort of USB-tethered CMOS C-mount dedicated camera?! It almost makes me wonder if the same may be said for still -images. The quality is easily good enough for p...

SOLD SOLD SOLD Just listed my beautiful Nikon SMZ800 on fleabay (U.K). Selling because I have to make some lab-space! Keeping my Olympus SZH as it has an objective-changer and excellent darkfield stand, so this spotlee Nikon has to go! This 'scope is immaculate and gives beautiful clean, crisp and f...

Looks like a nice start to me - clearly able to see that the vascular bundles are singles and as you say arranged in a ring. Some plants will have a complete ring, some other arrangements such as having the usual arrangement with 'extra' phloem bundles on the 'inside' of each vascular bundle - seen ...

Thanks John, would Histo I or II make any difference as I have neither at present? Michael Histo' 1 for certain, I've tried Histo' 2 and Histo' 3 and while they are both less 'smelly' they do have compatibility problems with mountants. It used to be the case that they were both substantially cheape...

A very interesting discussion, this is. Thanks. I use methylene blue in the 1% aq solution, but I find it much easier to handle when diluted much more. To a lesser extent the same applies to safranine. 1-3 Drops in a 3cm pertri dish with water gives all the time I need to judge the staining intensi...

I will say that mounting these sections for permanent mounts in clear nail polish or PVA glue (clear Elmer's) results in some bleeding of the stain into the mounting medium. Yes, the stains will all bleed to some extent in anything but a resin-based mountant I think. Don't think that resin-mounting...

Definitely - TBO is a superb stain, especially for live (i.e. unprocessed as per hand-sectioned) tissue. Make sure you rinse it well after staining to get the very best from TBO - take the time (only a matter of say 10 minutes really) to rinse well with water (preferable deionised - whatever water m...

It is easy enough to thin, just use 'Histoclear' - NuMount is resin-based - don't add alcohol or water or even oil to thin it! I have used NuMount to make dozens if not a couple of hundred permanent slides and it's really pretty good and has superb clarity. It may also be possible and indeed perfect...

Excellent sections, love the stining too - Safranin's been a favourite of mine since I started back in 2015. Both Safranin and Toluidine blue (TBO) are 'metachromatic' and this property is especially noticeable I find in hand-sections - probably because they're a lot thicker than microtome-sections,...

Excellent - any more images?

Hi, as far as I know blogspot and others are free - but you will not 'own' your content and so will lose it all if you close the account or if the host simply decides to delete it, very unlikely but with a growing blog/website with increasing amounts of content that you will inevitably come to treas...

For the Olympus BX 'scopes the wired stages I think have no overhang when moved to the limit in the X-axis. This 'overhang' of the rack has caught me out a few times, and I'd really like a wire-operated stage which doesn't have this problem - but it's finding one for my BX50 and of course affording ...

Hi, I am from India. Where do I get Triarch plant slides for 2 dollars or less? I felt 7 dollars was too expensive. In India nearly 1 dollar is charged per slide (containing single section). Can you make slides like that? $2 or less for quality slides - that may be asking a lot I think - quality sl...