Hi Franz, Possibly, it is a statoblast of bryozoan. The freshwater ones I have seen before looked very similar, but they had little hooks on them. Excellent picture! I quietly enjoy all images you are posting here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryozoa#Reproduction_and_lifecycle http://www.biol.vt.ed...

Speaking of Super Supplements - coenzyme Q10 is another good candidate for polarized light experiments.

These are true masterpieces, Charlie. Wonderful!

Very cute caterpillar! Beautiful pictures.

I have never seen them dividing. Excellent image!

This is Floscularia rotifer from the same water sample. http://www.pirx.com/gallery/albums/photomicroscopy/floscularia_darkfield.jpg Olympus 10x/0.40, darkfield, Canon 500D, flash illumination. http://www.pirx.com/gallery/albums/photomicroscopy/floscularia_reduced.jpeg Olympus 20x/0.70, DIC, Canon 5...

Charlie, these are amazing pictures! Rik, you are right - I am using Tiffen 52mm circular polarizer and it works very well both for polarized light and for DIC. It nicely fits illuminator port of Olympus BH2 stand. The quarter-wave plate is on a bottom of the filter, the linear polarizer part is on ...

Here are pictures of freshwater rotifers I found on a branch of water milfoil from Charles River. I think that the first one is Stephanoceros - at least it is very similar to an example of that genus illustrated in Wim's Micropolitan Museum . The other two pictures show a colony of rotifers, possibl...

Hi Rik, I didn't control the process, just enjoyed the results, trying to scan the slide to find interesting patterns. There are many variables to take care of: concentration of the vitamin C solution, temperature, heating and cooling speed, thickness of preparation, cleanliness of slide, inclusion ...

Simple preparation of vitamin C (ascorbic acid) dissolved in water and evaporated on a microscope slide exhibits an amazing variety of different forms when observed under polarized light or DIC illumination. All images taken with Canon Rebel 500D (live view mode), Olympus objective 20x/0.7, DIC. htt...

Great shot! These are difficult to photograph, but you captured body and neck in sharp focus.

Thank you for all comments!

Bernhard - one can also find small samples of uracil on eBay. It is a relatively nontoxic chemical.

Spectacular images! Beautiful composition and amazing clarity. These were taken with halogen illuminator in live view silent mode, is that right? Did you use MSPlan objectives? What is a working distance of the 50x objective?

These are crystals of uracil, one of components of ribonucleic acid, melted and crystallized on a microscope slide. The first two photographs were taken using a polarized light setup. The third picture was taken using DIC with a slider moved to obtain approximately white background. http://www.pirx....

One of my early, unsuccessful attempts of making microscope slides with Canada balsam. After a few months the entire slide has dried up. Interesting patterns show up in the dried and cracked mountant when observed under DIC illumination. http://www.pirx.com/gallery/albums/other_subjects/balsam01.jpg...