Digital Microscope

[William H.]

Just bought a new handheld digital microscope and have been playing around with it this morning. Here are a few of my first shots with it:

Blue jeans fabric:

Jackson's eye on the new twenty:

Pixels from my monitor:

One pixel from the previous photo:

I only have one lens, this is a shot of a ruler with 1/16" increments so it looks like about 32x magnification:

Bismuth metal crystal:

If you haven't seen one of these before, here is the whole thing:

I wish I would have had this in the summer when there were more insects out, it's getting cold here now so there aren't many around right now.

Besides taking snapshots it can also has time lapse and video functions. Anyone have any good ideas for using the time lapse or video features?

I would also be interested to hear ideas on what else to take snapshots of, I'll post a few more photos later.

Thanks for taking a look.

 

[jj]

I would also be interested to hear ideas on what else to take snapshots of, I'll post a few more photos later.

Thanks for taking a look.

That's cool. Can you tell us more details about the device, how much it costs, etc?

I'd say that the "time lapse" option might go well during a snowstorm or something, and the most magnification it does might show interesting stuff in the fridge.

 

[William H.]

Re: Re: Digital Microscope

That's cool. Can you tell us more details about the device, how much it costs, etc?

I'd say that the "time lapse" option might go well during a snowstorm or something, and the most magnification it does might show interesting stuff in the fridge.

It's a Proscope, you can read more about it here, the worst thing about it is that it has to be plugged into the computer and the cord is only about six feet long so it would be better if I had a laptop. I don't have a 1x lens so I couldn't do the snowstorm time lapse but I do like the idea of viewing snowflakes with it.

I haven't tried the time lapse feature yet so I'm not sure if the finished product is a video or just a series of snapshots taken at the specified intervals. I'll have to try this one along with taking a video later today or tomorrow.

 

[davefoc]

thanks for the pictures WIlliam H.

I bought the Intel digital scope toy awhile ago. The images were so crappy that I just gave it away to somebody who thought their kid might enjoy it.

I have an old microscope that one of my background projects is to figure out how to adopt a digital camera to.

 

[espritch]

That's pretty cool. I didn't even know there was such a thing. Now I want one (even though I have absolutely no actual need for one).

 

[William H.]

thanks for the pictures WIlliam H.

I bought the Intel digital scope toy awhile ago. The images were so crappy that I just gave it away to somebody who thought their kid might enjoy it.

I have an old microscope that one of my background projects is to figure out how to adopt a digital camera to.

There is an accessory for this one that's a c-ring lens mount adapter that supposedly lets you mount it to a camera, microscope or telescope. If you already have a camera maybe one of these adapters will work for you.

 

[William H.]

... Now I want one (even though I have absolutely no actual need for one).

That's pretty much the situation that I'm in, I have no need for it but it looked cool so I bought one. It's a lot of fun to play with but I'd like to find a good use for it.

I did get around to trying the video and time lapse (it's video and not just a series of snapshots) and they worked quite well.

Hopefully I'll come up with a good application for it, if nothing else I'll use it on the puzzle page.

 

[H3LL]

I want one too..but have no use for it.

A few time-lapse suggestions:

Soak a seed and get the initial germination.

Make a maximum concentration of sugar or salt and catch the crystal growth.

Set it up in the freezer and see ice crystals form.

Mould growth.

Pond water.

 

[Soapy Sam]

William. Impressive. Thank Ed you didn't post those in a "Does anyone know..." thread.

 

[William H.]

I want one too..but have no use for it.

A few time-lapse suggestions:

Soak a seed and get the initial germination.

Make a maximum concentration of sugar or salt and catch the crystal growth.

Set it up in the freezer and see ice crystals form.

Mould growth.

Pond water.

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll have to try some of them in the near future.

I was thinking about buying another lens, either a 100x or 200x, can someone with microscope experience recommend one or the other as better for general recreational viewing?

If anyone is interested, I posted a couple more pictures in the puzzle forum under "Close-up photos".

 

[davefoc]

i fooled around a little with a little cheap microscope viewer and a fairly inexpensive microscope. My thought was that there was to see a moderately good collection of weird life forms a 100x lens was best.

10x provided some tantalizing glimpes that I wanted to look at with higher magnification and anything with a higher magnification than 100x would have required more mounting skill and maybe tools than I had available.

My favorite sight was of a worm like organism attached to the side of my aquarium just kind of vacuuming up these little round creatures as they came floating by. You could see the little round creature piling up inside the little worm like creature. In the end I kind of lost interest because I didn't have a way to take pictures of what I was seeing hence my desire to hook up a digital camera to my microscope and play with the thing again.

 

[SezMe]

Have you seen gorgeous, golden dandelions? Surely, yes.

Have you seen them gone to seed, where they are a grey globe of seeds ready to be dispersed by the wind...or your puff as you blow on them.

Fun stuff. But have you ever seen one in an in between state? I have not. In addition to the WOT, global warming, and O'Reilly's moraliy, I wonder why I have never seen a dandelion in a state of transition. I would really like to see you point your new toy at a healthy, yellow dandelion and watch it until it is in it's "mature" state.

Hey, maybe there's a Nobel in there somewhere...or maybe an Ignoble....

 

[William H.]

i fooled around a little with a little cheap microscope viewer and a fairly inexpensive microscope. My thought was that there was to see a moderately good collection of weird life forms a 100x lens was best.

10x provided some tantalizing glimpes that I wanted to look at with higher magnification and anything with a higher magnification than 100x would have required more mounting skill and maybe tools than I had available.

My favorite sight was of a worm like organism attached to the side of my aquarium just kind of vacuuming up these little round creatures as they came floating by. You could see the little round creature piling up inside the little worm like creature. In the end I kind of lost interest because I didn't have a way to take pictures of what I was seeing hence my desire to hook up a digital camera to my microscope and play with the thing again.

Thanks for the info, I'm leaning towards the 100x lens if I decide to buy one, it would probably be better for general viewing. That worm creature you saw sounds kind of cool.

 

[William H.]

Have you seen gorgeous, golden dandelions? Surely, yes.

Have you seen them gone to seed, where they are a grey globe of seeds ready to be dispersed by the wind...or your puff as you blow on them.

Fun stuff. But have you ever seen one in an in between state? I have not. In addition to the WOT, global warming, and O'Reilly's moraliy, I wonder why I have never seen a dandelion in a state of transition. I would really like to see you point your new toy at a healthy, yellow dandelion and watch it until it is in it's "mature" state.

Hey, maybe there's a Nobel in there somewhere...or maybe an Ignoble....

Well, thanks for the idea but my 30x lens would be too strong to use for the dandelion, the depth of field is paper thin and the viewing area would be about a quarter of an inch. A 1x or 2x lens would work much better for this, maybe if I ever get one I'll try it.


Concerning never seeing a dandelion in transition, I think that they stay folded up in the bud position while changing.