This is a Moth that appeared to have died from exhaustion on my window on a sunny day. Estimated time of death; Several months.

The starting sample


Link for larger image No.1; Image 1

These were the best shots i could get.





Link for larger image No.2; Image 2
Link for larger image No.3; Image 3
Link for larger image No.6; Image 6
Link for larger image No.10; Image 10

Not as good as the spider shots i took. But not too bad!

John.

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I am running out of specimens! If you have any suggestions for things that you would like to see that would be easily obtainable please post them. I plan to order a few more slides later this week, but until them I am low on ideas.

Not a suggestion, but a question (probably due to my ignorance of microscopy): in a lot of your pictures there is a needle-shaped object, the tip of which seems to point to the middle of the picture. My questions are: 1) what is that, and 2) why is it there?

On second thought, maybe a suggestion too: ever thought about crystals? Simple stuff like sugar, table salt and what have you can make very pretty pictures when using the right illumination. Simply let a solution of the stuff dry on your object glass. More exotic stuff (salts of cobalt, cupper, chrome) are more difficult/expensive since you would have to buy them at a chemist. Iron (rust, or rust dissolved in acetic acid resulting in the acetate) might be nice. Well, I guess that there's lots of non-biologic samples that might be interesting. How about water (ice) crystals, or maybe more amorphic materials like soot?

Regards,
John.

Oh, that is a pointer. It is there so if I wanted to point something out in a picture I could rotate the eyepiece so the tip of that would point to what ever it was that I was putting emphasis on. As far as crystals go that's a good idea.

@Richard
Another good idea. I just have to wait until I can get a hold of one.

@Dominique
I'm surprised that I didn't think of that one :)

Thank you all for your suggestions. What I like about all of these suggestions is that all of them are easily obtainable. I will try to do all of these, though I will probably only have time for the crystals this weekend as I am watching these two all weekend:

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This is a Moth that appeared to have died from exhaustion on my window on a sunny day. Estimated time of death; Several months.

The starting sample


Link for larger image No.1; Image 1

These were the best shots i could get.





Link for larger image No.2; Image 2
Link for larger image No.3; Image 3
Link for larger image No.6; Image 6
Link for larger image No.10; Image 10

Not as good as the spider shots i took. But not too bad!

John.

Very interesting post John! I especially like this one:


If you don't mind me asking what kind of camera do you use to get these shots?

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If you don't mind me asking what kind of camera do you use to get these shots?

Its an Olympus u-Mini 5.0 mega pixel. Its a pretty standard camera you would buy for taking family and friends type photos, nothing special.



But like i was saying, i use electrical tape to attach parts of the lenses from my telescope to the front of the camera and it works very well.



And i have a mini tripod that was part of a spirit level and i have it screwed into the base of the camera to keep it steady.



This is the spirit level, its a laser level!



Its rough and ready but it works....LOL

Hope them kids don't tare the place up on you while your minding them!

John.

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I never thought of using telescope lenses on a camera, good idea! Now I just have to survive three days of twins wreaking havoc on the house and I will finally have time to experiment with some picture taking.

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I am running out of specimens! If you have any suggestions for things that you would like to see that would be easily obtainable please post them. I plan to order a few more slides later this week, but until them I am low on ideas.

All the ideas just come and go from my mind. How about film emulsion? Colloidal dispersions like ink, milk, etc? Computer processor taken apart? CRT, LCD, LED pixels? Hairs, dust, cloth fibers, spider webs? Digital camera sensor? New and used phonograph records and needles? Plastic frosted by oxidation? CD, DVD, Blu-ray disc pits? Video of the movement of the hourhand of a watch? Edge of a new razorblade from different angles? On and on.....

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I am running out of specimens! If you have any suggestions for things that you would like to see that would be easily obtainable please post them. I plan to order a few more slides later this week, but until them I am low on ideas.

All the ideas just come and go from my mind. How about film emulsion? Colloidal dispersions like ink, milk, etc? Computer processor taken apart? CRT, LCD, LED pixels? Hairs, dust, cloth fibers, spider webs? Digital camera sensor? New and used phonograph records and needles? Plastic frosted by oxidation? CD, DVD, Blu-ray disc pits? Video of the movement of the hourhand of a watch? Edge of a new razorblade from different angles? On and on.....

hmm... a lot of low magnification stuff, I like it! At the moment I am busy with the babies here so it will have to wait until late tonight, but I should have time to do some of these tonight. I am sorry, but the things like the crystals, butterfly wing, pollen, etc. will have to wait until after Sunday when the babies go home. They just seem to like to make a ruckus and it is keeping me quite busy. In fact I better get back to them now....
See you all later!

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Mouse cell nucleus
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/08/technology_enl_1212750145/html/1.stm
A detailed 3D image of the nucleus of a mouse cell. The picture was captured using a new imaging microscope technique called three-dimensional structured illumination, described in the journal Science. It allows cell biologists to take high resolution, multi-coloured images.

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Old enough to know better(but)still young enough not to care

. . . notes: regarding the Architecture of a Butterfly Wing


Butterfly wing colors are produced by a combination of pigments and reflection from photonic structures.

“If you examine the wing scale, you see all of the intricate micron-scale and nanometer-scale features that determine the optical properties,” Wang noted.

“From a physical point of view, this is a very regular photonic structure with regular gaps that produce the bluish color.”


. . . Replication of Butterfly Wing Scales Provides New Technique for Producing Complex Photonic Structures


The artificial butterfly wing scale is a three-dimensional structure that retains the features of the original.

That includes hollow tubular structures that split off at regular intervals, providing the potential for use as

optical waveguides and optical splitters – and even as microfluidic or microreactor devices . . .


This scanning electron microscope image shows the structure on the surface of a butterfly wing scale


Image courtesy Zhong Lin Wang



Optical microscope images of coated butterfly wing scales show color differences related to the thickness of the deposited alumina


Image courtesy Zhong Lin Wang

< abstract 1 >

The colour of an animal's body is due to spectrally selective reflection of incident light (Fox & Vevers 1960). The body's reflectance spectrum is determined by the presence of absorbing pigments,

and/or by submicrometre structural variations causing interference, diffraction or scattering . . .


< abstract 2 >

Using a low-temperature atomic layer deposition (ALD) process, materials scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology produced aluminum oxide (alumina) replicas of wing scales

from a Morpho peleides butterfly, a bright blue insect native to the rain forests of Central and South America. The artificial wing scales faithfully replicated the physical features

and optical properties of the natural wing scales that served as templates.


“We can never come close to the richness of the structures that nature can make,” said Zhong Lin Wang, Regents’ Professor in the Georgia Tech School of Materials Science and Engineering.


“We want to utilize biology as a template for making new material and new structures. This process gives us a new way to fabricate photonic structures such as waveguides.”


> Wang and his colleagues discovered that because the thickness of the alumina coating controlled the size and periodicity of the photonic structures, increasing the thickness shifted

the reflected light toward the red portion of the spectrum. For instance, by increasing the coating thickness from 10 to 40 nanometers, the color reflected by the alumina wing scales

shifted from the original blue to green, yellow, orange and eventually pink, Wang noted.


The complex nature of the structures would be impossible to create with any other process, he said. “This could provide a new way to make nanostructures that are replicated from biology,” he said.


“It allows us to fabricate truly tubular, three-dimensional interconnected nanostructures in a one-step process.”


The atomic layer deposition process could potentially be used with other materials such as titanium oxide, and to replicate other biologically-inspired structures.


“As long as there is a void that the vapor phase can penetrate, an entire structure can be replicated using the ALD process,” Wang said.

“Regardless of what the substrate is and what the three-dimensional shape is, you can control it to the Angstrom level.”

Copyright © 2008 - Informations & Photographic Images provided through the courtesy of Georgia Institute of Technology

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BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

I'm not sure how you'd do this, Albert, but could I suggest a "small leaf"?

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- Luke.

I'm not sure how you'd do this, Albert, but could I suggest a "small leaf"?

. . . like this?


Figure 2. Bacterial pustule of soybean with (A) upper leaf symptoms, (B) underside of same leaf, and (C) raised pustules on leaf underside (10X magnification). Note lesion association with main leaf veins.

~ or ~


Web Figure 10.1.B Photosynthate from the leaves appears in the sieve elements of phloem in the stem. 14CO2 was supplied to a source leaf of morning glory (Ipomea nil). 14C was incorporated into sugars synthesized in the photosynthetic process, which were then transported to other parts of the plant. The location of the label is revealed in the tissue cross sections by the presence of dark grains on the film. (A) shows a low magnification of the cross section of the stem (50×), revealing dark spots resulting from the silver grains in the film, shown in higher magnification (325×) in (B). The label is confined almost entirely to the sieve elements of the phloem. (Courtesy of D. Fisher.)

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BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

It's Over, on your butterfly wings, those electron micrographs look really interesting. However, I have a feeling the the ribs shown on the optical microscope pictures are not the same ribs shown on the electron photos. I've seen butterfly scales with the naked eye and believe they're something like 1/5 mm long (200 microns). Looking at the optical microscope pictures their ribs appear to be about 1/20 the length of the scale or perhaps 10 microns apart. On the electron photos the ribs appear to be only about one micron apart.

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I am sorry to you all to keep you waiting. The babies have just kept me so busy that I haven't had time to keep up with this thread and get some new pics. I hope to have some tonight after they go home, but if not I will get them tomorrow I swear. Thank you to all who has been contributing to this thread and keeping it going, I greatly appreciate it! Take care everyone,
John

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On the back of the five dollar bill (America) you will find 26 states listed at the top of the Lincoln memorial:
* Arkansas
* Michigan
* Florida
* Texas
* Iowa
* Wisconsin
* California
* Minnesota
* Oregon
* Kansas
* West Virginia
* Nevada
* Nebraska
* Colorado
* North Dakota
* Delaware
* Pennsylvania
* New Jersey
* Georgia
* Connecticut
* Massachusetts
* Maryland
* Carolina
* Hampshire
* Virginia
* New York
Here is an example of what this looks like:

Say hello to Mr.Lincoln:

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It's Over, on your butterfly wings, those electron micrographs look really interesting. However, I have a feeling the the ribs shown on the optical microscope pictures are not the same ribs shown on the electron photos. I've seen butterfly scales with the naked eye and believe they're something like 1/5 mm long (200 microns). Looking at the optical microscope pictures their ribs appear to be about 1/20 the length of the scale or perhaps 10 microns apart. On the electron photos the ribs appear to be only about one micron apart.

. . . eh Clyde - Thank You and here's hopin' You are Well

a Note: click on the following Link The cuticular structure in insects is generally investigated by means of SEM and TEM. SEM micrographs of cut surfaces give an impression of the three-dimensional character of the structure, while TEM micrographs of thin sections provide a two-dimensional view


> i believe these Factors govern the Observational Differences Noted by you Clyde . . . although, i might even be wrong ;)

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BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

I just pulled out a five, found a double-convex lens of about 40mm focal length, found a ruler graduated in 64ths of an inch (0.4mm) and it looked to me that the printing of the states is a little larger than 1/64 inch, perhaps 0.5 millimeter, high.
Someday I'll try to catch a butterfly, knock off a few of its scales on a glass and try to measure them in the same way.
Celestron finally answered me and said that the 10-power eyepieces of its 44110 have an eye relief of 23.5 millimeters and that its Koehler illuminator has two diaphragms. That's great if it's telling the truth. Maybe I'll order one in a month or so.
Maybe someday I'll get a digital camera. That 18x Nikon looks good but I have to be assured that its lens is good, too. Otherwise I'll wait. Terribly-small format lenses might suffer from diffraction, too.

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I just pulled out a five, found a double-convex lens of about 40mm focal length, found a ruler graduated in 64ths of an inch (0.4mm) and it looked to me that the printing of the states is a little larger than 1/64 inch, perhaps 0.5 millimeter, high.

Someday I'll try to catch a butterfly, knock off a few of its scales on a glass and try to measure them in the same way.

Celestron finally answered me and said that the 10-power eyepieces of its 44110 have an eye relief of 23.5 millimeters and that its Koehler illuminator has two diaphragms. That's great if it's telling the truth. Maybe I'll order one in a month or so.
Maybe someday I'll get a digital camera. That 18x Nikon looks good but I have to be assured that its lens is good, too. Otherwise I'll wait. Terribly-small format lenses might suffer from diffraction, too.

. . . Dear Clyde - i will 'personally' clip YOUR wings - IF - you so much as touch ANY Butterfly scales

< jest kiddin' . . . although, i wouldn't 'touch' the Butterfly IF i were you - THEY are quite 'precious'

and iT will destroy the 'architecture' - of said wings . . . ;)


< 'ello Albert . . .

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BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

Hello Richard and clyde. I am sorry for the lack of updates. I have not had the time for them. Tonight I will do them, I swear :) I meant to get a few new samples today on my hike, but I forgot to bring the vials to store them :( If it doesn't rain tomorrow I will go on another hike to get some samples. As for tonight I will try to do some of the requests. Take care,
John

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I'm not sure how you'd do this, Albert, but could I suggest a "small leaf"?

Here it is at low power:

The higher powered view of the cells did not turn out to well because I don't have a microtome to make the proper slides. I had to make the slices with a scalpel, so it is a little thick. For this reason I have the original image and then an image in which I indicated the nuclei with red and the cells with blue
Original:

edited:

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Here is the basic structure of a cicada wing, sorry Richard I have not yet gotten a hold of a butterfly wing yet.

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