Every video keeps getting better! You have a talent for expressing your passion for science through these videos and that's what makes it so interesting for viewers with similar interests. Keep up the great work!
Be careful using aluminum foil as a darkfield stop; it can reflect heat back into the lamp and cause it to overheat (less of a problem for LED scopes). I've used black cardstock which works well and absorbs a lot more of the light rather than bouncing it back downward
This was probably the coolest part of my aerospace structures lab. We used the same concept to visualize stress concentrations around a hole in a material. The material itself in our case was one of the polarizers but it could be applied to any material that has a noticeable birefrigence optical property.
Awesome Video , after watching this video I did the polarized modification and the results were amazing. Only thing i did differently was that I purchased a a cheap pair of polarized glasses and cut the lenses out using a bandsaw. Can't wait for future videos !!!!
Thanks a lot for this excellent tutorial! I can confirm this works very well, but the polarizing filters need to have NO scratch, else the image will be very blurry! I found that polarizing sheets can often come scratched, whereas polarizing glass filters for cameras are more robust and provide the same result (that's a tip I found on a microscopy forum), so in the end I am using polarizing filters for cameras and this works very well. Also, using 2 circular polarizing filters is better than the typical linear polarizers because with circular filters we can still see some material that would go totally extinct with linear, as described in this paper: Higgins, M. D. (2010). Imaging birefringent minerals without extinction using circularly polarized light. The Canadian Mineralogist, 48(1), 231-235.
Not a nematode expert, but by the way that worm moved, I think its a microscopic annelid. All the nematodes I've looked at move by thrashing about, whereas your worm is using peristalisis.
Well it also looks segmented, and nematodes aren't segmented afaik. It doesn't look like any nematodes I'd seen when I worked as a marine ecology assistant one summer in highschool.
Geologists, at least at my university, have to take several courses in rock/mineral ID using polarized & cross-polarized light. It's called petrography.
Yes, it's great to see these cheap and easy ways of producing more advanced modes of illumination. I have found that you can get really good darkfield images by leaving your microscope light switched off and just shining a reading light or even a strong torch (flashlight in American) across the axis of the normal brightfield lighting, ie horizontally, parallel to the floor. It's a pity there just doesn't seem to be an easy do-it-yourself way of getting phase contrast lighting, unless you have invented one!
a laymans way to do the first lart is to just get one polarisaer and your phone, or any lcd screen. place the object between your screen and the lens, and show a white screen on max brightness. rotate either the screen or the lens, and enjoy the pretty colours
Yea, two Polarizers are fun, but throw in a third one into the path and give 'em all a twist to blow your mind! Try circular Polarizers. Movie theatre 3d glasses are fine. Waves move through the Aether _and there's not a single particle in sight..._ lol
Dude I honestly believe you are so underated, you should have at least few hundred thousand subscribers. I will perform both of these mods; it is so AWESOME :D
With a Trinocular, Polarisationfilters work also at the 0° Eyepiece, the one on the top, i would guess because the light dosn't really get disturbed that way.
Very good insight of polarized and of dark field microscopy. I'm curious about a couple of things, though. As my degree is in photo science, with a good splattering of basic optical design and engineering: 1. Do you really need to stack the black mask or is that to create opacity for the mask. Why can't a singular, opaque circle of the correct diameter, mounted onto thin plastic be used? 2. Why does the positioning of the upper polarizer need to be so critically placed (on the inside, upper housing v/s the bottom of the eyepiece? Thanks, great work and narration.
If you put a piece of polystyrene (e.g. smashed petri dish lid) between the first polarizer and specimen you will get a retardation plate. This creates some absolutely stunning background effects like colour gradients and such.
Best way to fix that is share the video. I'm kind've a slave to the youtube AI right now. If it decides to share my content the channel does well. When it doesn't things stagnate no matter how many videos I make. It's sort've unfortunate but is the way it is. The channel will grow eventually I hope.
I shared your video about lactose intolerance because I thought it was some really unbelievable stuff but good to know. I can appreciate that the lack of advertising on your channel creates a negative-bias towards the RU-vid AI to share your videos but good luck man.
One of my goals is to get into quantum physics since it’s so unexplored but without college degrees how do I go about getting into that type of of field
You basically don't. Quantum physics, at least experimentally requires huge funding to explore any of the few knooks that are left to sus out. So getting a degree and becoming part of a research project is how to get involved
One thing I saw in a research paper was dark field microscopy to see Noble nanopartícles in a Silicon substrate. Do you know if we can do the same using your technique? Your "homemade" dark microscope. Ty!
I want to replace the very hot lightbulb source with some LED, (using a pi cam) I tried a white LED and a 365nm LED. What would you suggest? Perhaps a RGB ?
I understand that the mounting of the RGB could be problematic to obtain a constant color mix…, if it is that what you're referring as "weird effects" ? But you can buy color filters for "white light" microscopes..., That's my reason asking about RGB. Could also add UV and IR leds so that the RasPi could change the colors automatically while taking pictures. Could be a nice Open Source project, but I can understand that if you already have white "LEDs", their is no reason to change… but if you have a Pi cam mounted… Perhaps getting other viewers, while YOU explain to us "How UV fluorescence microscopy works" (and caveats), doesn't have to be a long video.
Thank You... lol I am a 'Home Geek Wierdo' accprdoomg to my friends .... this new interest of mine would fried them out lol My best closest mate calls my "Spooky at a Distance" already, because I Love PhotonLightTherapy.... I'm a singer/Songwriter ( award winning amongst peers} so you can imagine why 'They' think I am weird - guess whose doing the looking/thinking.... I just consider myself as Switched-On .... This world is Fascinating, and when I feel down it's these things that switch me On again.... accidentally found your Chanel because I want to Program Water - we know that can be done, and use slivers of 'Programming Gems and Chrystals" I also want to see it works, or not - figured this was the only way I could know for sure, and keep the Quality of bounce-to-light-to-Human-Health consistent..... and the Dark-Matter stuff seemingly surrounding everything has captured my interest too, as I imagine it's an Active Component around/through everything , which we don't really understand its activity in all/through all things yet"|? see, my Weird Science that I just call "Thought"Thanks again
I just watched you on vice. Its cool you guys got some notice. Hopefully someone out there sees it who is willing to invest with your team. That Aaron dude is such a douche. Hope all your equipment was okay. Thats a lot of money just thrown to the sidewalk. Does your team have a new space to continue reaearch?
Also you can do darkfield and polarized at the same time however you must use/make glass darkfield filter since almost all plastics polarize light. Check out my channel yo find out how to do that
Not an area I know enough about, but I believe cinema 3D uses circular polarization. I wonder what impact that would have on the results of this project.
Joats yes they do, but the glasses are analysing filters which make the circular polarization to an linear. Left and rigth hand polarized ligth produces linear polarized ligth with a 90 ° rotation. A second linear pol filter seperates them per eye. If you shine ligth thru the glasses they get linear polarized, is what i wanted to say XD
+Dute Nait, Thanks for the reply, you gave me the kick I needed to at least read the wiki article on Polarizers (and so I end the day slightly better informed than I started it, cheers).
