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glad to see this thread back, this has been fascinating.
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Nov 11, 2020 12:56
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drat. That apatite photo is so clear! Care to share what your new setup is?
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Nov 11, 2020 16:20
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Thanks! I was using an olympus frame with my mitutoyo objectives but the tube lens turned out to be incompatible and mushes the corners of the image, so I have moved over to a Nikon industrial frame: This series was in an awkward in-between period in the 90s and they also made some as oem producers for other brands, so parts for these can sometimes be had inexpensively. I don't have the coaxial illuminator set up but the rest works, and best of all I now have a mag changer which can do a 0.62x reduction of the image for ultra-wide fields of view. That gives me a lot of vignetting on the camera but I think if I modify a few components it will be much reduced. There are a few more things to do on this but I think it is exactly what I've been wanting.
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Nov 12, 2020 02:13
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I'm running a kind of informal Art Project for the the School of Environmental and Rural sciences here at my university. The scanning electron microscope, a Jeol 6010 LA, is in a room in the Animal Science department but any university staff member or student can use it after getting the induction and sorting out some billing information ($40/hour moved through intra-university accounts; I dunno ask the finance department). I've got a research project looking at microorganisms attached to pollinator exoskeletons, which I'm hypothesising is an important aspect of the ecology of flower-living microorganisms. In between endless examinations of honey bee tarsal claws, I image specimens for other people who have research projects not directly suitable to this kind of microscopy but they'd like to see some interesting high-magnification images of their research subjects. In the lab group I'm a part of (in Environmental Management), we work mainly on pollination, and the insects that do this ecosystem service. One of the other post-docs gave me some blueberry pollen that she'd been treating in various ways as part of her research.  Acetolised Blueberry Pollen 04 - EtOH only by Martin Brummell, on Flickr Acetolised Blueberry Pollen 03 - glycerol and EtOH by Martin Brummell, on Flickr Acetolised Blueberry Pollen 02 - glycerol and EtOH by Martin Brummell, on Flickr Acetolised Blueberry Pollen 05 - EtOH only by Martin Brummell, on FlickrAnother post-doc over in Animal Science is mad about chickens, she describes herself as a "chook researcher"  We put a few eggshells on some stubs and gold-coated them. Developing chicken embryos steal calcium from the eggshell as they develop; eggs not incubated do not develop so this calcium-stealing does not happen. We thought this might result in some differences between incubated and unincubated eggshells, and maybe including differences on the outside surffaces as well, which explains the odd filenames here.  Shell_Unincubated_In_0003 by Martin Brummell, on Flickr Shell_Incubated_In_0002 by Martin Brummell, on Flickr Shell_Incubated_In_0003 by Martin Brummell, on Flickr Shell_Incubated_In_0006 by Martin Brummell, on Flickr Shell_Unincubated_Out_0001 by Martin Brummell, on Flickr Shell_Unincubated_Out_0004 by Martin Brummell, on Flickr
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Nov 13, 2020 03:47
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I love SEM images. The things we struggle to tease out with a light microscope are just there to see in all their beautiful detail. Not having access to one is one of my only real regrets in not staying on in academia. The weird, fuzzy twigs making up the eggshell are a bit unsettling. I love it. Here's something at a slightly larger scale. Shot at 5x, a crystal of dioptase on calcite. 
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Nov 17, 2020 06:53
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I just picked up a piece of amber with a suitably flat polished face and had a look inside. I was hoping he would be a mosquito but it looks to just be another fly of some sort.  
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Apr 10, 2021 23:34
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Dang, well maybe next time you can Jurassic Park
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Apr 10, 2021 23:56
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It's not a total loss--maybe I can revive some sort of prehistoric fruit. This has been a long and somewhat involved project but I finally got an epi-DIC slider onto my microscope!  Differential interference contrast uses a prism or prisms to split your illuminating light and then recombine it after it has interacted with your sample--the interference between the two beams reveals a ton of details, and incidentally can render them in rainbow colors. The most popular type by far is transmitted DIC which allows you to see extremely fine details of transparent pond critters, but epi DIC is great for looking at reflective surfaces. It was widely used for inspecting wafers and is still used in a variety of industrial inspection applications, but in the gem and mineral world it's often used for looking at surface features on crystals. Here are some raised triangles on a Herkimer "diamond" crystal (a traditional name for super bright quartz crystals found in Herkimer, NY).    Yeah, I'm going to have fun with this.
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Apr 25, 2021 05:17
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Absolutely PHENOMENAL photo! I’m jealous of your setup 
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Apr 28, 2021 08:29
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Yeah those are looking really good
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Apr 28, 2021 11:07
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Cool photos! This one could be an album cover. Maybe synth?
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May 1, 2021 16:51
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We all know every photo in this thread belongs on a prog rock album
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May 1, 2021 23:22
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Dear Microscope Thread, I hope you all like plant genitals. Shot with "stackula", which is an Arduino-based focus stacking controller project I have been working on in fits and spurts for a few months. I have an OG Stackshot, but the UI always gave me the shits because it has too many features and horrible buttons.   Stackula, on the other hand has:
Clicking the rotary encoder cycles between 3 modes: Coarse Focus  Fine focus  Stacking  Once you kick off a stack by pressing "up" on the rocker switch in Stacking mode, the rail moves from start to finish positions in the increments displayed for the currently-chosen numerical aperture. At each step the controller triggers the camera via a cannibalized shutter release cable & simple optocoupler circuit. If anyone wants the 3d files, source code for the controller and the [probably] complete BOM hit me up with a PM and I'll send them to you!
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May 15, 2021 05:33
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Ooh, that's a really cool setup! Looks like a really good interface too. Can't argue with the results either. Is there a variable pause after focusing and before shooting, or is that fixed?
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May 15, 2021 06:51
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I probably need to add some sort of variable post-move wait time to allow for using continuous light sources - I use flashes myself so the only thing I need to consider is flash recycle time. At the moment the timings are fixed, but depending on requirement it's easy to change in the firmware since they're just constants in the config file. My current values are: 1. Move to next position 2. Wait 1500ms after moving to position (SETTLE_TIME_MS time) 3. Trigger shutter for 100ms (SHUTTER_TRIGGER_TIME_MS), and then wait for another 150ms (SHUTTER_REST_TIME_MS). 4. Wait another 1500ms after that (POST_MOVE_WAIT_TIME_MS) 5. Go to #1 e: I've PM'd you a link to the source so you can see what I mean Dia de Pikachutos fucked around with this message at 07:41 on May 15, 2021 |
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May 15, 2021 07:39
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Thanks! I'm stoll a ways out from assembling my own automated system but it's definitely on the radar. I got a couple more neat DIC pics this weekend. These are surface textures on a brown tourmaline crystal. Oddly one crystal face is covered with the impressions of the mica crystals it grew among, while the other two show rounded, kind of bubbly textures.   
Scarodactyl fucked around with this message at 19:33 on May 29, 2021 |
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May 29, 2021 19:30
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You guys are wizards
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May 29, 2021 19:49
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I'm more of a sorcerer myself
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May 30, 2021 08:04
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Dia de Pikachutos posted:I'm more of a sorcerer myself Bloody charisma casters
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May 30, 2021 08:59
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Coaxial illumination (light shining down through the objective with a half mirror) has limited uses, but when you have flat refective platelets floating inside a gemstone it's just perfect. Photos of rainbow lattice sunstones have gone semi viral a few times, and the material is famous for long flat crystal inclusions which have a sort of woven pattern arrangement. If you look closer, however, you can see a variety of other forms as well. Here we have the remains of a hexagonal crystal which likely got partially dissolved and recrystallized, and the eye of sauron. FoVs are about 1mm and 0.5mm respectively.  
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Jul 8, 2021 20:35
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A couple more photos--these are of a quartz crystal using epi DIC. In the second one there is an iridescent fracture just under the surface. 
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Jul 28, 2021 02:50
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That looks amazing! Was it challenging to set up for epi DIC?
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Jul 28, 2021 03:53
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Thanks! For my main system it was easy conceptually but a bit involved logistically. I used kinda mismatched components and didn't want to pay the asking price for the exact right thing (things like a proper DIC nosepiece which starts around 600usd on eBay vs modifying a normal 100 dollar bd nosepiece). I've tinkered with a few other epi doc systems though and it's not usually that hard, just a matter of sourcing the right components. It's a lot easier overall than transmitted DIC since you only need one prism (either one per objective or one single slider for all of them) and it's more forgiving of partial mismatches. edit: if you're thinking about setting one up I'd be happy to help. Scarodactyl fucked around with this message at 03:22 on Jul 29, 2021 |
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Jul 28, 2021 05:46
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Mmmhmm love me some DIC
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Jul 29, 2021 07:14
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Those are remarkable. 70's prog rock album art vibes.
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Jul 29, 2021 07:45
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This whole thread is amazing. One suggestion I'd make is to tinker with the black point level. True blacks in images like this one would really make them pop.
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Jul 30, 2021 03:15
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Thanks, I appreciate that. Honestly I'm kind of clueless on editing beyond basic stacking and dust removal, it's something I need to put some time into in general.
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Jul 30, 2021 03:41
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Scarodactyl posted:Thanks, I appreciate that. Honestly I'm kind of clueless on editing beyond basic stacking and dust removal, it's something I need to put some time into in general. You should, editing is fun and a little bit goes a long way. If you don't mind, here's what I was talking about :  The before/after histogram showing the adjustment made: 
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Jul 31, 2021 00:50
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Belated, but thanks for the tips on that. I've been working on it but it's a lot to learn. The Nikon Small World results came in, and I got an Image of Distinction for this shot:  Quartz crystal surface DIC by Stephen Challener, on Flickr It was kind of a surprise to me but definitely makes me want to keep hunting for more fun subjects. Ending up in the same category as a photo I bought a print of and have up on my wall feels weird.
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Sep 13, 2021 18:19
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Scarodactyl posted:Belated, but thanks for the tips on that. I've been working on it but it's a lot to learn. Congratulations, well deserved, a beautiful image. Did they change small world to only be photomicrography at some point? Or am I misremembering that they used to take macro as well?
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Sep 13, 2021 23:01
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I think it has always been micro only, though their definition of 'micro' is reasonably broad. I know some people were worried that customized photo rigs using microscope objectives directly on a camera wouldn't count, while Nikon doesn't actually seem to care as much about that kind of distinction.
Scarodactyl fucked around with this message at 23:27 on Sep 13, 2021 |
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Sep 13, 2021 23:09
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This thread often goes right over my head but it is very cool. Congrats
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Sep 13, 2021 23:24
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this thread often makes me think about what if i was a little dude traversing that crystal taking photos with a tiny camera of my own
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Sep 14, 2021 04:20
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Scarodactyl posted:Belated, but thanks for the tips on that. I've been working on it but it's a lot to learn.  Hell yeah IOD buddy Amino acid crystals (Glutamine and Beta Alanine) Dia de Pikachutos fucked around with this message at 12:28 on Sep 14, 2021 |
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Sep 14, 2021 12:25
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I thought that looked like your style! Congratulations, that's an awesome image.
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Sep 14, 2021 16:08
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holy poo poo this thread owns what the heck e: feel kinda bad bumping the thread just to say that because i'm sure when people see there's a new post they're hoping for more photos
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Sep 16, 2021 12:41
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It's okay, here is another picture so you don't feel bad. Same amino acids as above, just a lucky nucleation site I guess Dia de Pikachutos fucked around with this message at 12:10 on Sep 17, 2021 |
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Sep 17, 2021 12:04
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My microscopes were in storage for months due to renovations but I'm finally back. Here are a few pictures I shot of iridescent hematite crystals inside a sunstone.   
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Feb 8, 2022 18:58
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Absolutely spectacular. That stuff is so neat.
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Feb 9, 2022 07:47
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Thanks! It feels really good to have everything set up again. Here are a few more shots.  A tiny tumbled pebble of demantoid garnet, showing classic 'horsetail' inclusions.  A closeup of a fire agate, showing the bubbly layers of iridescent iron hydroxides that give it its name.  This is a closeup view of a partially 'healed' surface on a quartz crystal. This happens when quartz fractures while it is still deep underground and subsequent fluid action allows the surface to begin to recrystallize. Left long enough the crack could heal shut, but sometimes the surface just develops a crystalline texture.
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Mar 2, 2022 00:04
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