MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

I have a problem. I'm sure I can't be the only one! Please let me know!

I live more in my head than out of my head. This means that I'd rather read about microscopy than look through my microscope! That's a problem!

So I strike a balance. I force myself to go "hands on." Once I go "hands on," I always learn and feel great. It's that first step that is so hard!

And you??

I make a microscope video every morning with a little commentary at the beginning. It gives me a lot of practice. I love playing with the lighting and the motion of focus and stage. I think I'm more hands on. I hate reading and don't want to know what things are called.

@DonShaefer

LOL! We are opposites!

When I got into rocks and minerals it was a half a year of learning before I even touched a microscope. How things change when you finally put the scope to work. Understanding what you are looking at is important to me but I must admit that looking at amazing things in the scope is much more enjoyable.
Greg

@Greg Howard

BTW, I do have a rock and mineral collection. The minerals that are granular, such as sulphur, I was thinking that I could do a scraping and with a tweezers pick up the smallest particle I could find. Obviously, you cannot compress a solid, at least you cannot use the force necessary if it would break the coverglass. And I don't want to interfere with around 0.66 mm W.D. with the 40x which could happen if my coverslip were upraised too much.

Any clues you can give me on how to proceed?

Linuxusr, I can relate completely. Must constantly fight the tendency to be in my head rather than hands-on. I forget sometimes that many of life’s most satisfying moments of being in that “flow state” can only be achieved through direct physical experience! I’m always glad when I put down the books and spend an evening at the microscope.

I'm somewhere between linuxusr and DonSchaeffer, I enjoy reading and learning about a subject as it helps me really appreciate it, but there is a sense of discovery and exploration to just getting in there and seeing what can be seen.

The desire to categorize and understand is typically there though and when I see some new mystery I am often compelled to figure out what it is and learn about it.
An example for my own exploration was the accidental "discovery" of Synura. I was entirely unaware of their existence, but I stumbled across a stange spinning balls of life and was enthralled. I wasn't sure what it was, it look somewhat like a few other things I was aware of, but I was pretty sure it was something different....and it was!

My distraction is thinking about and creating "expansions" to add new capabilities to the stuff I have as I am a tinkerer at heart.

Linixusr...
I use a long working distance 50x objective with a metallurgical scope in polarized light with light from the upper light house. Light goes down through the objective and specimen is viewed using the light reflected back into the objective. Objective doesn't usually touch the glass and if it does pressure is slight.
Greg