site banner

Tinker Tuesday for December 17, 2024

This thread is for anyone working on personal projects to share their progress, and hold themselves somewhat accountable to a group of peers.

Post your project, your progress from last week, and what you hope to accomplish this week.

If you want to be pinged with a reminder asking about your project, let me know, and I'll harass you each week until you cancel the service

3
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I picked up a used microscope a few weeks back. Got it off a former veterinary student on Craigslist who no longer needed it. It has 4x-10x-40x-100x objectives with a 10x eyepiece and it came with a bunch of accessories (slides, slide covers, dyes, tools), enough to keep an amateur microscope user occupied for a while. I just bought some slide mounting media (for making permanent slides) and immersion oil (for the 100x eyepiece, I learned that some high-magnification objectives are designed for a drop of oil between itself and the specimen being observed).

I have scraped off various samples from around the house to look at. They include:

  • Slime from the bottom of the kitchen sink (surprisingly not very interesting)
  • Wool fibers (pretty neat)
  • Moist soil from the garden (found several energetic critters in the sample)

I found a dead bee on my patio outside and brought it in with the intention of making a permanent slide, but while waiting for the mounting media to be delivered, my cat found it and ate it, so there goes that.

Next time I am out and about, I will try to gather some interesting samples (pond scum? tide pools? decaying plant matter?)

At some point I intend to get an eyepiece camera so I can connect it to my computer and take photos and video, which would be cool.

Anyone have any suggestions on other things I can do with this thing?

If it works with dead bees (my only microscope worked only with transparent media, I would try various vegetables and fruits. Skin, slices, mold.