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Mysterious things in Microscope

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  • July 28, 2015 at 6:29 pm #29582
    jimmymac2

      Just after applying immersion oil, I saw these through the eyepieces:

      Mysterious things in oil - 28th July 2015.jpg

      [attachment=0]Mysterious things in oil – 28th July 2015.jpg[/attachment]
      They weren’t the spores (which I found soon after). They were above the spores. Has anyone seen them before?

      July 28, 2015 at 7:01 pm #35486
      Lancashire Lad
      Keymaster

        Hi Jimmy,

        These are all spores.

        With oil immersion, the depth of focus is extremely narrow, so anything that’s not in the focus band generally appears as out of focus blurry blobs.

        You will find that even when there is only a very tiny drop of water between the slide and its coverslip, there will be enough depth for some spores to “sit” on the glass of the microslide itself, and for others to become “stuck” to the bottom of the coverslip, and (if there is sufficient liquid) with yet more spores “floating” between the two.

        So, you can “focus down” to those spores sat on the slide itself, or you can “focus up” to those stuck to the bottom of the coverslip – even though the distance between the two extremes can be very small indeed!

        Regards,

        Mike.

        July 29, 2015 at 7:18 am #35487
        jimmymac2

          That’s strange. When I was using the oil I was looking at the orange Russula spores, which were very warty, but these spores aren’t that warty at all. I did zoom in and out a bit to see the whole object, and it definitely wasn’t as warty.

          July 29, 2015 at 8:18 pm #35488
          Chris Yeates

            Don’t forget to adjust the iris diaphragm every time you change objectives; so many people neglect to do this and this affects the optimum resolution achieved.

            This is a simple and useful guide (you can ignore the stuff about the mirror, you’ll have Kohler illumination or equivalent)- especially note the second half: http://www.discusnews.com/article/cat-02/microscope1.shtml” class=”bbcode_url”>http://www.discusnews.com/article/cat-02/microscope1.shtml

            regards

            Chris

            July 30, 2015 at 6:20 am #35489
            jimmymac2

              Hi Chris,

              I do adjust the iris diaphragm. Do you think that causes the mysterious objects or are they definitely spores?

              Regards,

              James

              July 30, 2015 at 8:20 am #35490
              adampembs
              Keymaster

                Do you re-use cover sips? I never re-use cover slips. Were the spores above or below the sample when focusing? Opening/closing the iris only adjusts the width of the light beam, and affects how objects are illuminated, including depth of field, contrast etc. It won’t magically create spores. ;)

                July 30, 2015 at 10:17 am #35491
                jimmymac2

                  I don’t re-use cover slips, yet anyway. I’ve only looked at two different sets of spores so far! But I’ve gone through three coverslips; the first broke when I was using it to scrape to spores to the centre of the slide, silly me! The objects were above the sample when focusing, as said above.

                  July 30, 2015 at 11:13 am #35492
                  adampembs
                  Keymaster

                    I would guess either a contaminated cover slip (or contaminated oil.)

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