#keratella

"The numerical aperture and its relationship to resolution is important because it puts a limit on just how much magnification we can actually do with a given objective. There's a general estimate if you are looking into microscopy yourself, that you'll get a good magnification when you're working in the range that's 500 to 1000 times the numerical aperture of the objective."

Journey to the Microcosmos- We Dipped Our Lens in Oil to See More Detail

"The first one's pretty obvious: it's the magnification. But the magnification you see written on the objective lens is not the same as the magnification we write up on the corner of the videos. That's because the objective lens isn't the only source of magnification in our microscope. We're also looking through an eyepiece that has its own magnification. So the final magnification that we see is the product of the objective lens' and eyepice's magnifications."

Journey to the Microcosmos- We Dipped Our Lens in Oil to See More Detail

Images Originally Captured by Jam's Germs

"Whether we've got air between the sample and the lens or oil when we're viewing our sample depends on the objective we're looking through. Our lower magnification objective have lower numberical apertures, and they're meant to be used with air. Our higher magnificaiton objectives have higher numerical apertures, and they're meant to be used with oil. Using air with oil objectives give us poor images, and using oil with our dry objective would damage the objective. So... don't do that."

Journey to the Microcosmos- We Dipped Our Lens in Oil to See More Detail

CC: "The remarkable thing about waste is that, like water, we all have to deal with it. It is every bit as much a part of life as the living itself is, proff that our bodies have done something, consumed something, made something. The only thing more remarkable is that even when the basic principles of waste management stay the same, the end resulsts can look so different."

Journey to the Microcosmos- How Do Microorganisms Pee?

Images Originally Captured by Jam's Germs

"To get from one of these images to the other, James--our master of microscopes--didn't change any of the technical settings on his microscope or pull some kind of video editing wizardry. He just simply added a drop of oil to the coverslip encasing the glaucoma, and dipped the objective into the oil. Now this is because the cone of light going from the specimen into the objective isn't just going straight from the sample to the lens. It's passing through something--it's pass through air."

Journey to the Microcosmos- We Dipped Our Lens in Oil to See More Detail

"A fun side note: cloacas act as a sort of multi-purpose opening. In the case of the rotifer, yes it is used for peeing. It's also used for giving birth. So maybe you're swimming in rotifer pee, or maybe you're swimming in rotifer babies. Whichever one it is, it all came from the same place."

Journey to the Microcosmos- How Do Microorganisms Pee?