Nikon D5300 + tube macro + 35 80mm f4.5

Experimenting with some dark field and Rheinberg filters. On an off for comparison. Paramecium, stentor, and volvox.

Hi everyone,
I’m having trouble with high background when imaging immunofluorescence staining for synaptic markers by confocal microscopy. The background makes it difficult to distinguish individual synaptic puncta confidently, and I’m concerned about how this might affect quantification.
I’d appreciate any advice on how to troubleshoot this and work out whether the background is mainly related to the staining, tissue autofluorescence, or imaging settings.

I brought these slides back from Germany, where I was learning the staining protocol. The staining looked much cleaner when we imaged them there, but I’m now seeing a lot of background when imaging the same slides at my home institution.

Here is also one representative image after deconvolution in Imaris.

This was originally a Paramecium Multi bowl cultured on 9.3.26 with spring water and wheat seeds. None of the other bowls from this date turned a blood red color. There is clearly a fungal mold growing on top. What could have made it turn into this red color?

There are no Paramecium in it anymore, but there are a bunch of dinoflagellates swimming around in the bowl.

The seeds turned red and seems to be a clumpy bacteria around them. Not stringy or any other texture.

​

Bought big red apples at grocery store, and got an idea to look at one a little bit closer.

Made several sections using cheap microtome from AliExpress, and examined them with my microscope.

Turned out, the apples are covered in continuous wax cuticle, of circa 20 microns thickness, which is smooth on the outside, but hides a rough surface, as epidermal cells protrude into it somewhat.

There are a couple of layers of pigmented cells, under which starts fleshy part of the apple.

There is no sharp transition between skin and flesh of apple, going from skin inward cells become bigger, and pores are opened between them.

Images captured via 20x objective lens, 0.5x reducer and 5Mp usb webcam.

Focus stacking using Zerene Stacker.

Gif animation using ezgif.com free online tool.

Hello everyone, I’m starting a lab and would ideally like to purchase 3-4 stereo microscopes for identifying aquatic macroinvertebrates and then 1 or 2 compound microscopes. I'd love at least one mid-tier stereo microscope with a camera and a screen and one compound microscope with the same features (budget ~$6k for each). I've only ever used older microscopes (e.g., Leica S6E). The Leica works great, and I got it used off eBay several years ago (I think for $1500), but I’d like something with more zoom for the hard-to-see characteristics as the Leica zoom tops out at 40X.

Does anyone have recommendations on the mid-tier stereo (max total zoom >40X) and compound microscopes with a camera and possibly a screen? Would it be cheaper to just connect the camera to a computer screen?

Are there any new (to avoid hunting) or used stereo microscopes you would recommend in the $500 – 2000 range that would be suitable for invertebrates and have a zoom range of ~5 – 40X?

I've used Dolan Jenner goose-neck light sources in the past for the stereo microscopes, but if there's something better I'd definitely like to know.

Thanks!

Leitz Dialux II, Galaxy S24

THE CLOSER, THE STRANGER

We draw closer, thinking we'll see more. Yet some distances help us see things for what they are, while others leave us unable to tell what we're looking at.

Same subjects. Different distances. Different worlds.

#MacroPhotography #ExtremeMacro #NaturePhotography #Perspective

Hello folks looking to get some help identifying some weird fiber like materials I found. I was using a modified version of the Walkley-Black method for measuring organic matter levels in some soils. This method required the use of .2g soil sample + 1mL potassium dichromate + 3mL concentrated sulfuric acid. Once cooled we added 20mL of RO water. Once the material had settled I noticed weird fibrous-like looking material floating right above the settled soil (not pictured sadly). I've run hundreds of these and have never seen this happen before. Our reference soil was clean and this wasn't seen in any of the other samples except for 3 out of the 5 that came with this specific customer. This is under 10x magnification but I am unsure of the microscope type. Any help or pointers is appreciated!

Looking for demodex, found this instead. x100, beat-up old school microscope, unknown model.

$1,500, OBO

2 things:
1) I apologize if this breaks some rule- I didn't see anything in the rules before posting.
2) If this number seems high, I apologize. I base my price on current market availability for a used unit plus used accessories. The price is negotiable, but I would appreciate it if you do not lowball.

I am selling a pristine Olympus SZ61 stereo zoom microscope, used only in a hospital laboratory setting and kept in excellent condition. The Greenough optical system gives a bright, sharp image. This unit also has a light guide and dual gooseneck fiber-optic lighting, making it well-suited for gemology, mineral and fossil work, electronics inspection, entomology, jewelry, and more. This unit was last maintained (cleaned, greased, etc.) last year. I cleaned it once more about a month ago. It has been sitting under a dust cover since.

What's included

• Olympus SZ61 binocular zoom body, 0.67x-4.5x zoom
• Olympus SZ2-ILA transmitted illumination base, with a clear glass stage plate
• Olympus SZ2-LGB light guide illuminator
• Olympus HLL-301 double gooseneck light guides

What's NOT included

• Eyepieces. The photos show eyepieces mounted for demonstration, but those are from my EXC-350 and are not part of this sale. I can direct you to options for compatible eyepieces if needed.

This unit was only used in a laboratory setting, with no hobby or field use. The body, base, and light guides are clean and in pristine cosmetic condition. Lenses and stage glass are free of scratches and fungus. Focus and zoom are smooth; all lamps and light guides are tested and working. Test images were taken with my phone camera to show the clarity of the unit's lenses. My phone camera is not the best and does not do this unit justice.

I will also include microscope cleaning kits, gloves, and Kimwipes if you'd like, for free. Shipping is available to the US ONLY. I will cover shipping if you pay my asking price.

Microscope: Nikon SMZ1500 Stereo

Modality: Darkfield,

Objectives:Hr plan Apo 1x WD

Sample: rehydrated tree bark moss

Acquired using Samsung galaxy s25, 3x zoom on video through eyepiece, contrast corrected for background, frame stableized

Song clip: Seatbelts - cats on mars ( cowboy beepop), the respective copyright holders own the song

I needed some phytoplankton for feeding my amano shrimp larvae and finding phytoplankton in my area is close to impossible so, brine shrimp are locally collected from salt lakes and frozen to sell as fish food.

I bought some, crushed them into a paste and added it into salt water and left it in the sun, after a few days, I had different types of algae in they bucket, I took a sample and started to culture it indoors and this is the algae which I am able to maintain, rest all types vanished.

The first picture is 400× second is 100×, the salinity is 1.018 SG and I had it in 1.024 SG also and it survived effortlessly between any salt range.

The third picture is the colour of the tank.

Location is India

Please help me Id this phytoplankton and can it be fed to my shrimp larvae?

🖋️/🗒️: Jacques Herbin Emerald de Chivor on Yupo Translucent polypropylene, spread out with a sewing needle

🔬: Amscope ME580, epi-illumination with crossed polars, 10x/50x LMPlan objectives

📸: Google Pixel 9 pro, recording with Blackmagic app through 10x eyepiece

🎵: Rilo Kiley - The Execution of All Things

Crystals of ethyl vanillin, a molecule that has a powerful vanilla scent. It possesses all the sweet, creamy, and round facets of vanilla in addition to being incredibly cheap. Consequently, it is widely used as a vanilla flavoring in food and to create the scent of vanilla/ add sweetness in perfumes.

I took both these photographs from different parts of the same slide. I get the crystals by evaporating a thin film of a 50% dilution of ethyl vanillin in ethanol, sprinkling a few small crystals to act as nucleation points.
I find the first picture striking because of the contrasts between angular crystal geometry and organically shaped polarization induced colored segments (due to thickness and crystal orientation, I presume) and small crystalline fractals emanating from seeds. The second picture almost resembles butterfly wings, with little scales and vivid rainbow hues. Polarization is really a magical technique.

Given that the concentration and all other factors were uniform across the slide, I’m curious if anyone has any thoughts on the reasons behind the differences in crystal shape we see here.

Magnification: 40x, 100x
Scope: BINO CXL, Micron-OPTIK
Camera: iPhone 16
Sample: ethyl vanillin crystals

I was following around a particularly large example of Chaetonotus, a kind of gastrotrich, when it seemed to get itself stuck on a piece of debris (like a poor kid putting his head through a fence). This gave me a chance to oil the slide and take a closer look at its scales and hairs. The pharynx and digestive system are also clearly visible.

Olympus BH2, SPlan 40x 0.70 & SPlan 100x 1.25. Canon EOS 5D Mark II. Pond water sample from park in Paris 16eme. Video edited with OpenShot.

Read the full story for more images

Taxanes are the first line of treatment for a wide range of cancers, including breast, lung and prostate cancer. Taxanes are very effective chemotherapy drugs, but we don’t fully understand how they work.

Taxanes are known to bind to microtubules, hollow structures that are a core component of cytoskeleton, or the cell’s internal skeleton.

Microtubules support cells to maintain their shape, move, transport materials internally and separate chromosomes during cell division.

It can be visualised using electron microscopy that on binding, taxanes change the structure of microtubules on the nanoscale.

Researchers found that this change causes a signalling protein called GEF-H1 to detach from the microtubules and activate the RhoA signalling pathway.

This signalling pathway reorganises actin, another part of the cytoskeleton that acts like the cell’s muscles, causing the cell to contract and change shape.

Insights into the mode of action of taxanes may lead to the design of better cancer therapies.

Cells were imaged on a custom Yokogawa spinning disc with an Eclipse Ti-E body (Nikon) with perfect focus, a MS-2000-XYZ stage with Piexo Top Plate (ASI), a CSU-X1-A1 spinning disc unit (Yokogawa) and STXG-PLAMX-SETZ21L temperature and CO2 control (TokaiHit). An S Fluor ×100 oil objective (Nikon) was used to acquire images. Voltran Stradus 488-nm (Vortran) and Coherent OBIS 561-nm (Coherent) lasers were used to excite the sample, and ET525/50m (GFP) and ET630/75m (mCherry) filters were used to filter the signal. A prime BSI sCMOS camera (Teledyne Photometrics) was used to take images, and MetaMorph 7.10 (Molecular Devices) software was used to control the microscope.

Microscope incubation chambers were preheated to 37 °C with 5% CO2. One image was taken every 30 s (GFP-GEF-H1 imaging) or 1 min (F-actin imaging); the first 10 min acquired served as a baseline, after which either 10 µM paclitaxel (PTX) or discodermolide (DDM) was applied to cells and cells were imaged for another 10–15 min or 1 h.

Read the full story for more images

This is just a demonstration with some math because u/Patatino wanted to see it and presumably he is not alone. It's going to be boring to most, feel free to skip. Mostly posting it because it needs multiple pictures to demonstrate and comments can only have one picture each. And for posterity, reddit is good at getting indexed by google.

TL;DR: My admittedly inexact method estimates Polyphos at max setting to be D 1.47-1.51 Yes, I mean the inner ring is at NA 1.47

The test setup is as follows: clear 1mm slide to which all condensers in comparison are oiled, on top oiled to it another 1mm slide with a frosted top layer, on that laying bottom-up a micrometer slide to provide scale to the frosted surface. One unknown for the calculation is the distance between the frosted surface and the plane of focus (has to be above the first slide due to specimen thickness, plus the frosting has some depth to it), plugging the known values (1.25 and 1.4) into the equations I arrive at approximately 0.6mm assuming a refractive index of 1.516 for glass. With this value I get the following measurements:

• Leitz 603: 106.3° = NA 1.23

• LOMO OI-14: 136.5° = NA 1.41

• Reichert Polyphos at approximately the point I get darkfield with my 100x objective: 136.4° to 168.6° = NA 1.407 - 1.509

• Reichert Polyphos cranked to the max setting: 153° to 168.6° = NA 1.474 - 1.509

Pictures 1-3: Leitz 603 apl achr oil 1.25 NA, what its illumination looks like from the outside, the view through the 2.5x objective and 12.5x/18 eyepieces when focused on the frosted surface

Pictures 4-6: The same for LOMO OI-14 apl oil 1.4 NA

Pictures 7-9: The same for Reichert Polyphos at approximately the setting I used to get darkfield with the 100x 1.32 objective

Pictures 10-11: The ludicrous performance of Polyphos cranked to the max, the inner ring is over 5 mm wide

Rainwater, 400x, AmScope M150C, taken with iPhone

having a hard time finding anything moving from outdoor samples recently

Found this beauty right after it pooped :) after some research, I would like to say this is a dero worm. Can anyone confirm?
Sample is from a lake in Salt Lake Valley
Total mag- 100X