microscope

[Gary Prentice]

I thought you were continuing in the same vein as Mark

 

The modern instruments definitely lack the aesthetic looks. 

 

That one pictured is arriving next week, so I’m looking forward to cutting things up and delving into a new world 

 

[daltontrees]

15 hours ago, openspaceman said:

Looks easier to use than mine but I bet it's nowhere near the mass

I used to have that exact microscope until 2 years ago, it was the same one I used for geology at Uni in the 80s. Rotating stage and polarisers, really good light control. The field of view was a bit small but there's always loads of eyepieces and interchangeable objective lenses on ebay so it could have been pimped a bit. A hefty lump of metal, I recall.

15 hours ago, openspaceman said:

 

 

 

[daltontrees]

On 07/12/2017 at 18:15, Gary Prentice said:

Just for your benefit Mark. Your photo is of a device claimed to make things bigger. My photo is an instrument to make things 'look' bigger. If you need my instrument to find the object that yours is designed to enlarge, well you've some real problems

So is this the one you've bought? I really regret not getting a trinocular.

 

Let me know if you want to borrow some prepared slides.

[daltontrees]

Just now, daltontrees said:

So is this the one you've bought? I really regret not getting a trinocular.

 

Let me know if you want to borrow some prepared slides.

Gary, did I ever put picrures up on Arbtalk of how to make your own microtome from (literally) nuts and bolts? I can't remember if I did. I made one and photographed the process.

[openspaceman]

Just now, daltontrees said:

I used to have that exact microscope until 2 years ago, it was the same one I used for geology at Uni in the 80s. Rotating stage and polarisers, really good light control. The field of view was a bit small but there's always loads of eyepieces and interchangeable objective lenses on ebay so it could have been pimped a bit. A hefty lump of metal, I recall.

 

 

This one came from the chemistry (life sciences) department when they went over to some fancy digital thing.

 

Yes it is a bit limiting for ease of use but I don't use one hardly ever now.

 

What impressed me most with the digital offerings was the software that allowed stacking of images, focussed on different depths of the object, so that the whole cross-section of something like Spirogyra can seem all to be in focus.

[openspaceman]

5 hours ago, Gary Prentice said:

I thought you were continuing in the same vein as Mark

Sorry, no sense of humour, too far up the A spectrum

[daltontrees]

24 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

 

This one came from the chemistry (life sciences) department when they went over to some fancy digital thing.

 

Yes it is a bit limiting for ease of use but I don't use one hardly ever now.

 

What impressed me most with the digital offerings was the software that allowed stacking of images, focussed on different depths of the object, so that the whole cross-section of something like Spirogyra can seem all to be in focus.

That sounds interesting. I have found already that photographs can be a bit disappointing and I came to realise that while using a microscope one is constantly adjusting the fine focus to aid with a 3d understanding of structure even in very thin (15 micron) sections. I can imagine spirogyra is perfect for the digital layering technique.

 

In  geology it is common to focus through the specimen and to wathc te progression of aslight line of brightness from a material of one refractive index to another refractive ndex of an adjacent mineral. This is a useful diagnostic technique, and I will have to see if it can be used for plant tissue. If you have polarisers yuo are quids-in since the cellulose of cell walls has a decent index, which it loses if degenerated by decay, and this can eb seen readily in cross polarised light (the cell walls go black).

 

Once I get my set-up back in use, I will try and illustrate this. 

[daltontrees]

32 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

 

This one came from the chemistry (life sciences) department when they went over to some fancy digital thing.

 

Yes it is a bit limiting for ease of use but I don't use one hardly ever now.

 

What impressed me most with the digital offerings was the software that allowed stacking of images, focussed on different depths of the object, so that the whole cross-section of something like Spirogyra can seem all to be in focus.

By the way, the small field of view is a bonus when using a digital eyepiece, since the latter only looks at a very small part of the field of view on my swankier microscope. One of my first experiments will be to take photos (at huge resolution) of various pats of the field of view then using stitching software (I use 'Hug-In') to join them and  build up a montage of very high quality. I am even thinking of geting a 0.25 or0.5x eyepiece adapter to compensate for the small size of the digital coverage.

 

[Gary Prentice]

1 hour ago, daltontrees said:

So is this the one you've bought? I really regret not getting a trinocular.

 

Let me know if you want to borrow some prepared slides.

I decided on the trinocular because I think that it'll be easier to document/record with a camera, than to put a lot of effort into creating permanent slides.  Once I get a camera sorted I can just leave it attached.

1 hour ago, daltontrees said:

Gary, did I ever put picrures up on Arbtalk of how to make your own microtome from (literally) nuts and bolts? I can't remember if I did. I made one and photographed the process.

You didn't, I think you showed Brunels bench microtome in use.

 

 

 

35 minutes ago, daltontrees said:

By the way, the small field of view is a bonus when using a digital eyepiece, since the latter only looks at a very small part of the field of view on my swankier microscope. One of my first experiments will be to take photos (at huge resolution) of various pats of the field of view then using stitching software (I use 'Hug-In') to join them and  build up a montage of very high quality. I am even thinking of geting a 0.25 or0.5x eyepiece adapter to compensate for the small size of the digital coverage.

 

You're really going to have to (please) continue with the original thread, cos none of the above makes any sense to me. All I want to do is prepare a slide and take a photo, but I suppose it's not quite that straight forward?

[Gary Prentice]

1 hour ago, openspaceman said:

Sorry, no sense of humour, too far up the A spectrum

Nothing wrong with that...

 

What did you used to use it for?