MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

Glenn Shipley wrote an opinion column for Microscopy Today back in 2009, "CItizen Microscopy."
It is available from the publisher online here: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals ... 1F8ABF16E4
(Note that Cambridge no longer publishes Microscopy Today. It is now published by Oxford.) Glenn Shipley also sent a nice note to Oliver Kim in response to his initial post "What in the World is Microbe Hunting?"
https://www.microbehunter.com/what-in-t ... e-hunting/

Shipley contrasted amateur microscopy against amateur astronomy:

"Nevertheless, the opportunities to do direct observational astronomy with the telescope are extremely limited. It must be done at night with clear skies unencumbered with air o light-pollution. When these increasingly rare conditions are present, the viewer needs a rather large and expensive telescope to see anything more than the moons of upiter or the profile of craters on the moon. Compare that with microscopy, which practitioners can be do anywhere, any time of the day or night, under any weather conditions, and can have an incredible variety of specimens to look at--specmens that have color shape, internal structure, and sometimes even move around The instruments to see these objects are cheap, widely available, and completely portable. So why are not more people doing it?"

Myself, like most kids who were interested in science, I had both a telescope and a microscope. However, as an adult, my amateur astronomy dates to 2015, whereas I bought my first microscope for myself only in March 2022 and it was not until August that I acquired my AmScope B270. So, for me, Shipley's essay was relevant.

Thanks,
Mike M.

I enjoy both hobbies, and I'm not sure why Shipley found it necessary to compare the two in order to promote microscopy. Pretty much everything in the quoted paragraph is absolutely not true:

- Observational astronomy is awesome during the day, when we have the best views of our nearest star
- While astronomy is better enjoyed in non-light-polluted skies, there is plenty to look at from under city or suburban lights, and objects to view change with the months of the year. And some of my best astrophotos have been taken when most of the sky is covered by clouds. Like a microscope slide, the FOV through a telescope is but a tiny portion of the whole.
- You absolutely do NOT need a rather large and expensive telescope to see anything more than Jupiter's moons or craters on the moon. In fact, I'd venture to guess that there is more to see and do for very little money with respect to astronomy than with microscopy, but of course that's a subjective statement. I can do fantastic astrophotography (and even scientific astrophotography) with a cheap mechanical camera and no other equipment (these days I could probably do it with my phone, but my phone is more expensive than an old mechanical camera). Not sure I can do photomicroscopy without a microscope.
- The inference that astronomy equipment is all expensive, not widely available, and not portable, is just nonsense

Can't people enjoy a hobby without trying to argue (innefectively) against other hobbies? Seems a waste. Note: I am only referring to the quoted text in this post, but I'll take a look at the entire essay to see if this was taken out of context.

After reading the article, I see that the quoted text was not taken out of context, so my previous comments stand.

The author does make a great point though. While most of the amateur astonomers I know do "sidewalk astronomy" to bring views of the sky to the general public, I'm guessing that not as much of that is done with a microscope. I live in Thailand, where most of the children will never see through a microscope. To that end, I've been putting together the equipment to broadcast live views of samples from my microscope into primary school classrooms around the country. It's not the same is looking through the microscope, but it's not a bad runner up. I've been discussing with science teachers that I know what types of things would be beneficial to the students as an "in-classroom field trip." I'm not sure when my first presentation will be, but I'll make a post here when it happens.

Mike and mac,

These are most interesting comments about microscopy and astronomy and when I saw the name of my old friend mentioned I read further and saw the names of some of the others with whom I've had the opportunity to interact I had to take a moment to reflect, both on those interactions and what those folks had done for 'amateur or citizen' microscopy over the courses of their lives and careers. In my humble opinion it is not insignificant.

There are several/many in this group who are doing 'amateur or citizen' microscopy in their own programs and I'm grateful that I've had the opportunity to contribute in whatever way that I could.

mac, your project with the school kids sounds challenging. Please keep us updated with your progress.

lorez2

Astronomy and Microscopy appeal to two natural tendencies most of us possess, each one attempting to peer into infinity and see more of what is there, albeit in different directions. One might as well add in surveying or bird watching and have a 4 way comparison of lens modulated perception but I don't see the need for comparisons, except based on economic clout. I'm sure out there somewhere there is a core group of amateur surveyors and a theodolite discussion group but they wouldn't be too far behind microscopy as being seen as infinitesimally small and valueless where the money is concerned though. Where the microscope gets pointed onto scientific value itself, a comparison is due.

The term citizen microscopist or citizen microscopy is a bit loaded because it feeds off of the current popularity of citizen scientists in astronomy or astrophysics, some of whom have pretty high profile positions or have made notable discoveries in astronomy. There are less famous participants in certain conservation projects too but they aren't involved with stars. It
is somewhat natural to reflect on citizen microscopy in comparison to astronomy, if only because astronomy ; the stars have such a high profile. Could certain individuals working daily outside of scientific fields participate in a real world project collectively within a scientific framework? Money and marketing intervene. That is unlikely to happen. Amateur microscopists tend to toil away unheralded in individual labs or rooms, repeating microscopical exploits by others of the past, rather than participating in groundbreaking cooperative ventures. Astronomy is sexy and well funded. Microscopy, is nerdy and funded on an immediate need basis.

What I would like to see is a project continuously observing and documenting the seasonal variation in plankton over many years at one or several benchmark locations. This would obviously need to be spearheaded by a funded research team but also would necessarily need the input of numerous citizen microscopists doing serial sampling and observing under a rigid scientific protocol. Something like manning the James Webb telescope 24/7, only manning the microscope 24/7 using continuous aquatic sampling. Until that or similarly designed and targeted conservation projects are undertaken, we will continue to be in the dark regarding just what is happening on our very own planet. It won't really matter whether a certain galaxy was forming 6 billion years ago because there won't be anybody around to know that. Right now though , we know more about exploding stars millions of light years away and Brad Pitt's activities than why plankton and bird populations have declined dramatically next door. It seems that stars , all kinds of stars remain more important in our culture. The meek, not. ....When you wish upon a star....

apochronaut wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 09, 2023 4:31 pm

. . . What I would like to see is a project continuously observing and documenting the seasonal variation in plankton over many years at one or several benchmark locations....

Phil, FWIW "citizen scientists" are currently doing this in the Bay Area - with at least one of the citizen leaders a semi-retired Prof. and sometime poster (crb5) here. California's Bay Area has a fortuitous combination of ecological concern for the Bay (surfers, kayakers, scuba divers and more), universities, curious students, institutions like the Monterrey Bay Aquarium and its Research Institute, and some generous donors. On edit: Clive has a link below.

Don't know for sure, but I believe there's likely a similar effort associated with universities in the Boston area?

At the other end of the scale, UC Santa Cruz has some of the world's foremost astrophysicists. Far as I know the closest thing to citizen scientists they employ are graduate teaching and research students.

I gave up on astronomy/astrophotography because the skies here are awful, and because I had to do it all from an open window (problematic!), and because I couldn't cope with the window open in cold weather (when it's more likely the skies are clear).
It's not necessarily true that you have to buy expensive telescopes to do anything meaningful. Long exposure astrophotography with decent, cooled cameras allows you to do a lot with a relatively modest telescope, so long as you have a decent equatorial tracking mount. But... always - weather permitting! I've found it much more comfortable and convenient to work with microscopes though I have a habit of flitting between hobbies, so I often just stop doing microscopy until the desire to do some rises again! I confess I've not done any since the beginning of November - the cold December didn't help! Hope to get back into it as the temperature rises

Louise

As Pete says, there is a network of community scientists who monitor plankton across the USA https://coastalscience.noaa.gov/science ... ation/pmn/ which involves individuals, schools and colleges.

Happy New Year, Clive!

Yes, I know about PMN. My point was the relative importance attached to such activities compared to space exploration. I'm not denegrading the work that is being done but it is coastal : too much of the does it impact us, the fishery etc. That is not really relavent at this point and never really has been. The human species and humans in general need to get beyond that and realize it isn't about us and it isn't about you. It's not about whether the Marlin are big enough for trophy fishing in Florida.

The monitoring needs to be 24/7, just like it is for the telescope and funded at least ss well. Does plankton monitoring attract so many ravenous zealotes and is it being attended to so rigourously? Not is the word. It needs to be.

I recently sold my 6" telescope and gave up trying to upgrade to a more serious system despite living in a high-altitude desert. Good optics are expensive, but man, the price of a decent clock drive requires at least a second mortgage. Never mind the fact that when all is said and done, nights with good seeing are surprisingly few and far between. And who's got time to take 3 hour exposures of the same thing for 17 nights of something you can just download from the JPL website.

On the other hand, microscopes are ready at the flick of a switch. This makes citizen science far easier. The difficulty then becomes narrowing down the list of things worth investigating and discovering that more is likely known about any square meter of the moon than what lives in any cubic centimeter of backyard dirt. I totally get the context of the article.

Sure Squintsalot wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 10, 2023 3:55 am

And who's got time to take 3 hour exposures of the same thing for 17 nights

We solved that by pointing 4 telescopes at the same object!

macnmotion wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 10, 2023 5:49 am

Sure Squintsalot wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 10, 2023 3:55 am

And who's got time to take 3 hour exposures of the same thing for 17 nights

We solved that by pointing 4 telescopes at the same object!

os-rh300-array_42313493802_o_sm.jpg

Nice setup...

I feel with astronomy I always craved for new equipment, as that was the only way to get a 'new' view.
After 2 years of observation I needed a new telescope which had to be either too big, or too expensive, so I sold the one I had and still didn't get a new one. Although I miss it sometimes, maybe I'll get a 127 mak to look at planets. I enjoy looking through binoculars meanwhile. I feel microscopy craves investments far slower, or differently.
I like looking through a telescope, but hate looking at it standing in the corner... Like with boats, the best telescope is your friends telescope.

Each to their own,if anyone finds microbes in space they'll need to bring them back here to get a good look at them.

Big battle:
Linear aperture (telescope diameter)
vs
Angular aperture (microscope NA)

Both lead to a crave for flat field, fluorite apochromat objectives.

A similar discussion on an Astronomy forum continued for 4 pages! https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/8385 ... icroscopy/.

apochronaut » Mon Jan 09, 2023 7:35 pm Yes, I know about PMN. My point was the relative importance attached to such activities compared to space exploration. I'm not denegrading the work that is being done but it is coastal

PMN also logs data from freshwater sites

The monitoring needs to be 24/7

The California coast has several Imaging Flowcytobots sites that continuously monitor plankton populations https://sccoos.org/ifcb/. Obviously these instruments are not run by citizen scientists, but volunteers do monitor the same sites by traditional sampling methods and the data serve as a control - and a back-up in the event of flowcytobot failure. The flowcytobots themselves require training to identify species by machine learning. Thus there is a need for people with traditional microscopy skills. Local community colleges provide one route for training future professionals and interaction with citizen scientists https://www.instagram.com/pacificplanktonprogram/?hl=en. University Departments may also have active outreach programs, such as the Kudela lab at UCSC http://oceandatacenter.ucsc.edu/home/.