I have been brave today, I tried lots of new things I haven’t tried before. I used immersion oil for the first time, I used my Lomo aplanatic oblique condenser (oiled) and I tried taking the photos with eyepiece projection – I have never tried that before either. I have been so organised that I have managed to do a compare and contrast of relay lens versus eyepiece projection, I think I prefer eyepiece projection.
I have also mowed the lawn and planted violas in the front garden. Very lovely they are too, the post lady will be pleased.
Oiling a condenser is messy, finding diatoms under oil immersion is a pain in the posterior but I think I did okay for a first attempt. Something needs cleaning but I’m not sure what. There are blobules in the same place in every shot. I can only assume it’s on the bottom of the condenser. I’m still chuffed though.
All pictures were taken using the Lomo microscope with 1.4 na aplanatic oblique condenser, and 90x oil immersion objective (na 1.25). Some 50 year old cedarwood immersion oil that i fpound in an old condenser box was used for oiling both the condenser and the objective. The only difference was the photography; a Canon EOS 1100D was used to take all the pictures, but the pictures marked “relay lens” used the Brunel universal camera adapter (2x) and the pictures marked “eyepiece projection” were taken using a Zeiss projective 8X eyepiece.
Click on the pictures to make them larger…
Comments on: "My first diatoms" (6)
If you had started earlier in the year, you could have planted cellos and basses. In a month, you can plant violins, with a nice border of flutes and piccolos.
I absolutely love the diatom images, and concur with you: eyepiece projection worked better for you. What green filter did you use?
Mike Andrews, W5EGO WWME Oklahoma area executive team
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My garden isn’t big enough for cellos, some trumpets would be nice though.
I used a nikon phase contrast green filter. It probably had a number at some point, now it’s just the Nikon phase filter. A lovely dark green.
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Immersion oil… I shudder to think what a mess i would make with that! 🙂
Thanks for the beautiful green!
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Thanks for stopping by. I’m being a bit neglectful of blogs at the moment but I shall return in full force when the sun comes out!
I suspect immersion oil shouldn’t be quite as messy as I made it. Lack of experience..
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My entirely unscientific assessment is that the ones that made me go “Oooh!” the loudest were the eyepiece projection ones.
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A fine assessment method. I’m hoping to improve on them further soon.
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