I am now in remission from myeloid sarcoma and living in an apartment. I am preparing instructions so my grandchildren can use my microscopes when I am gone. The modified Monolux microscope is equipped with Edmund Scientific JIS objectives. I was curious how the resolution of the Edmund 60X objective would compare with that of the LOMO 30X 0.90 NA water immersion objective. My sudden move to be with my family necessitated giving up much of my equipment, including the cable release attachments for my digital cameras and my heavy macro stand for supporting the cameras.
I did keep my enlarger stand for photography with the microscopes. I modified my Olympus E330 DSLR for use with a cable release by using epoxy putty to attach a length of 6-32 screw thread to the camera body as shown in Figures 1 and 2. My modified Monolux was used for the tests of both objectives with the camera on the enlarger stand as shown in Figure 3. A Zeiss Kpl 25X eyepiece was used with the LOMO 30X objective at 160 mm tube length with a 0.17 mm thick cover glass and water immersion. The Klaus Kemp 8 form diatom test slide was used for the tests. Nitzschia sigma was chosen as the test diatom because my earlier article demonstrated that the striae of this diatom were just resolved using COL.
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
The transverse striae were well resolved with the 60X Edmund objective versus just resolved with the 40X objective, compare Figures 4 & 5. The 30X objective resolved the transverse striae to rows of dots, see Figure 6.
Figure 4
Figure 5. Nitzschia sigma imaged with Edmund 60X 0.85 NA in COL.
Figure 6
The 30X LOMO objective was designed for epi fluorescence of biological specimens. My hobby use of this objective is very unorthodox. I prefer to use this objective for pond water studies without a cover glass. I found that the spherical aberration from use without a cover glass can be corrected by extending the tube length from 160 mm to 212 mm. I use a 16X Zeiss Kpl eyepiece with the extended tube length. My goal is to obtain artistic images of live diatoms, like that in Figure 7, to share with friends.
Figure 7