In another post you mentioned testing your polarization setup.
A copepod such as this one of yours is a great test for polarization.
See:
https://www.microbehunter.com/microscop ... id#p101006

When it is an Ostracod! These 2-shelled Crustacea, also known as seed-shrimps , were common in a recent FW sample. They range in size, the largest in this sample is 0.60 mm long. Under polarized light the shell can show several different colours. Olympus BH2/BHS, SPlan 10x + 1.25x intermediate tube ...

Yes, I believe it is a full lambda plat'; labeled 530 nm.
By rotating the polarizer I can get various colour backgrounds; the setting that gives the awful purple colour also gives the best definition of the internal musculature.

Thanks again. I worked on the Zerene stacked image and got a better image than my original post. However, it was still slightly inferior to your adjusted image. Had most trouble with removing the purple around the springtail's rear end and furculum, desaturation left me with dark pixels between the ...

Thanks Lou. Not only did you vastly improve the background but also the musculature became clearer.
As an extra bonus it shows that high NA condensers can be used with low NA objectives, if one is competent in post-processing.

The uneven-lighted background is a result of me using the wrong condenser, i.e., their BH2-NC (not recommended for low NA objectives). The Olympus 4x D Plan has a NA of 0.10 and is meant to be used with their Ultra Low Condenser (ULC), which I have. The ULC gave a very evenly-illuminated background ...

extracted this small, body length 1.0 mm, Collembola from moss that had just been exposed below melting snow. In normal light seen as a small off-white beastie, polarized light shows the internal musculature - red, blue, yellow. Note the large yellow dorsal muscle at the rear end which pulls the fur...

A further, final, comment on hand sectioning plant material; (originally posted on MicrobeHunter). I have been trying several techniques to get cross-sections of plant stems including 'hand' cutting with the double razor blade, using a hand microtome fitted to a bench with the plant held by a foam p...

I sampled my local ditch for aquatics to photograph. Lots of leaves from 2020. There was one aspen leaf (Populus sp.) that was likely from the year 2019 as it had been heavily skeletonized.

Thanks Rik.
2 sets of cambium tissue; one gives rise to the xylem and phloem and the other to the outer bark. Damaging the outer bark often results in damaging the outer cambium tissue - often bad news for a tree.

Just used the 2-blade technique to section a White Pine twig. Difficult, could get only a half section. The large holes and small ones in the xylem are resin ducts. The stem as shown is 1.40 mm across the midline. Blue stain is Fast Green. Red stain is Safranin-0, used as a very dilute solution in w...

It's a male March Fly; Family: Bibionidae

Thanks Sumguy01; it seems that keeping the blades perpendicular to the stem results in a complete section but rather thick. I do sometimes end up with some thin sections but these are never complete 'circles'; so I get maybe 1/2 a section but the inner straight edge is just a few cells thick. Likely...

My botanical stains finally arrived (from the UK). Here are two sections of a lupine stem using the double-blade method; stained with Safranin-O and Fast Green. Reversed 40mm enlarging lens and Nikon 10x for close up, Nikon D700 Rather thick sections but considering the cost of equipment (= 2 razor ...

The double-blade method works well. Will not always give an intact section, will do so for thick sections, but it will give a portion of the section that can be in the region of a few cells deep. Equipment needed is cheap. http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/indexmag.html?http://www.microscopy-uk.or...