The Dog Hair Experiment

At Microscope World we are curious and love viewing different specimens under the microscope. The microscope expands the world we live in. Using a metallurgical microscope with reflected light, we took a look at some dog hair.

Image of dog hair was captured at 200x magnification using the ML7100 metallurgical microscope, a c-mount adapter and the DK3000 microscope digital camera.

400x Magnification.

A metallurgical microscope, such as the Meiji MT7000 series, allows viewing of objects that will not allow light to pass through them. A metallurgical microscope is used when a stereo microscope will not provide enough magnification (generally when you need to see micron size particles). Metallurgical microscopes look similar to biological microscopes, but a major difference is that the objective lenses allow light to shine down through them, providing plenty of light for a crisp clear image, at a high magnification.

Microscopic Creatures

One of our customers recently purchased a microscope digital camera adapter for the Panasonic FZ28 camera. The adapter has the equivalent of a 10x eyepiece lens built into it and allows the user to connect a standard point and shoot digital camera to the microscope either through the microscope trinocular port or through a microscope eye tube.

This is a Jaera Albifron, part of the leach group. This tiny animal (2mm in size) lives in the high tide zone beneath stones.

Jaera Albifron bearing three eggs.

All images courtesy of Marianne Ligthart.

Ken-A-Vision Kena T-1050 Digital Microscope

Microscope World is proud to offer the Ken-A-Vision Kena T-1050 digital microscope. With 20x, 40x and 100x magnification, this microscope offers both low and high magnification for a range of uses. The top LED light can be used to shine light down on specimens and the bottom LED light will help illuminate slides at higher magnifications.

The Kena can be removed from the stand for handheld macro image capturing. Simply capture images by pressing the button on top of the camera. This feature makes field work easy. The Kena digital microscope runs on the power from the USB cable and 4 AA batteries operate the bottom LED light.

The Kena microscope won the 2009 IDEA Design Award for International Design Excellence. The IDEA competition is a celebration of the most innovative and exciting product and product concept designs of the year and one of the world's most prestigious design competitions. You can purchase the Kena Digital Microscope for home, school or field work from Microscope World.

$20 Bill Under Microscope

Microscope World recently captured images of the US $20 bill under a microscope. Using the Motic SMZ-168 stereo zoom microscope on the lighted post stand, the magnification was set to 5x to capture these images.

The Moticam MC1000 digital microscope camera was threaded onto the microscope c-mount adapter. The camera includes software and allowed us to view a live image on the computer monitor prior to capturing and saving the image.

The images turned out crisp and clear.

Polarizing Microscope Colors

Minerals a rocks produce amazing colors. Using a polarizing microscope, Dr. Parvinder Sethi, Professor of Geology at Radford University captured these images of paper-thin slices of rocks with a 35mm film camera.

To prepare the rocks, Dr. Sethi used an industrial rock saw to cut a hand-sized piece of rock, then he trimmed it with an oil-cooled saw with a diamond blade. Once it was trimmed, a square piece of the rock was glued to a glass slide and cured with heat. Next, the slide was ground by hand until it was about 30 microns thick (barely visible to the naked eye).

All images were captured at 40x magnification. The images you are viewing on this page are about the size of the tip of your pencil!

Dr. Sethi does not utilize any color alteration tools when capturing the images. All images are exactly how they appeared under the polarized light microscope. 

Once Dr. Sethi captures the images, he develops the film by hand and then scans the images to the computer. Science and art become synonymous with Dr. Sethi's work.

Digital Stereo Microscope

The DC4-456H digital stereo microscope provides 10x and 30x magnification. The microscope hooks up directly to the computer through the USB port and comes with software. When the software is open on the computer you can view a live image from the microscope. This image can be captured and saved. Measurements can be made using the software as well.

 

  

This image of a soda can tab was captured at 10x magnification with the DC4-456H digital stereo microscope.

 

30x magnification.

Science Project: Microscope Staining Cells

Since many cells are almost transparent under a microscope, it is sometimes necessary to stain them in order to view components of the cells. There are quite a few different types of stains available. You can view a list of the most common microscope stains here.

While many stains are advanced, below is a basic staining activity that you can try at home. There are several types of stains you can use at home including: food coloring, iodine, malachite green (ick fish cure), and methylene blue. You can purchase food coloring at a grocery store, iodine at a pharmacy, and the malachite green and methylene blue can be purchased at an aquarium store.

Certain stains will color different parts of a cell. Experiment with your own to see which part of the cell the different stains attach to. Make sure you have adult supervision - stains can be messy and not only will they color your specimen, but also your hands, the table, carpet, etc. Make sure you put plenty of paper underneath your work area and have some spare towels handy to wipe up any spills.

Science Project: Create a stained prepared slide of your cheek cells and compare this with an unstained prepared slide.

You will need the following items:

• Microscope
• Blank Glass Slides (2)
• Cover Slips (2)
• Eye Dropper
• Q-Tip or Toothpick
• Stain (see above)
• Paper Towel
• Water
• Pencil and Paper

Gently scrape the inside of your cheek with the toothpick or Q-Tip to get some cheek cells. You do not need to press hard. Prepare two identical wet-mount slides by placing the cheek cells and one drop of water on each of the blank microscope slides and covering them with cover slips. 

Set one of the prepared slides aside and with the other prepared slide apply the staining material. The image below shows how you can pull the stain into the slide. Place your drop of stain on one side of the cover slip and use a paper towel to pull the liquid out of the other side of the cover slip. When the liquid is pulled out from the left the stain will be pulled under the cover slip from the right.

Take a look at each slide under the microscope. Do you notice differences in the details you can view in the cheek cells? Try the same activity above, but this time try a different type of stain. Make sure you document your science project and draw images of your cheek cells. You may want to share your findings with your classmates!