Hi Mike--
You have spotted what I have been waiting to see for quite a while. I always find the empty ones...great shot, really captured the symmetry of the beastie. Was this oblique or regular brightfield?

--David

Charlie--
That's just plain astounding. What were the optical and sample and detector parameters used here? It looks like oblique with your trusty 100X SplanApo...Just a spectacular shot.

--David

Hi Charlie-- Nice pol shots. Try straining the plastic, you'll get even more birefringence effects....also, a doubled piece of cellphane (like from a Celestial Seasonings tea box or some CD box covers) will act as a decent yellow or red first order plate...sandwhich it between a pair of slides and p...

Hi Mike--

Very nice shot, and it looks like you'll have more soon, that's one gravid rotifer...which of the 3 mighty o-plans did this picture come from?

--David

Hi Ron--

Great shots as usual and a "10" for timing and observation. I've always wanted to see one hatch out. Did you get enough shots to make an animated series?

--David

Hi Ken--

Very nice oblique image. Are you doing any other post processing?

--David

Thanks Charlie-- I agree with Mike, you (and the other members of this forum) have inspired me to improve my photomicrographic technique, and provided so many incredible, beautiful and thought-provoking images this year. Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Happy Holidays to all of you, and a great New ...

Hi Jean-Marc--

These are great. I think Cymbella is my favorite diatom genus, I've kept a culture of them for years now. As for alive vs. dead, you know the old saying, "Biology is the art of killing with finesse".

--David

Charlie-- Those are amazing. You should really consider talking publishing some of your rotifer shots in an academic setting, I'm not sure that the microanatomy of some of these species is that well studied; you may have already found some features that would be of interest to the zoological communi...

Charlie-- If only I could spell "algal" too, that would be nice.... I don't have a rotating stage, just the standard orthoplan x-y table. The interference colors are modulated by the angle between the waveplate and the optical axes of the birefringent sample, so just being able to rotate the wavepla...

I'm completely stumped as to the genus of this particular algae, but it certainly looks good under polarized light. You can see how the optical axes of the cell walls line up with the fast/slow axes of the red-I plate in the two pol images. Optics as follows: 12V 100W halogen lamp with BG-12 filter ...

That's a very good question. The images show the un-retouched color as photographed through the phase gear. I'm not certain if that reflects some kind of pigmentation in the flagellates or is the result of interference phenomenon. They don't show nearly as intense a blue coloration under brightfield...

Thanks Ken and Larry and Charlie-- These guys are very intriguing to observe, I'd really like to get a high-res video of them "fishing". I didn't realize how small they are until I went to snap a picture and realized it was going to require my 1.4 NA lens and 2.5X on the variotube to get a decent nu...

I'm not sure what genus these belong to (Poteriodendron?, hopefully the more knowledgeable members can ID them), but they are quite small. I really need to take a high-resolution video of the flagella, they are coiled and thrown out of each cell like a lasso, its amazing to watch. The top photo show...

Charlie--

That's astounding...truly beautiful. I've watched these things whipping all over, but haven't tried to get a shot of one until I get my flash back together again. Really amazing.

--David