Tomopteris -Planktonic marine worm
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- Cactusdave
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Tomopteris -Planktonic marine worm
I recently obtained a slide by Victorian slide mounter Abraham Flatters of the marine planktonic polychaete worm Tomopteris. The slide has Flatters' logo label 'Accurate' on it and the description is in his hand writing, dating it to the 1890s. Tomopteris is a curious and beautiful creature, using parapodia at the end of its limbs to swim actively in the open ocean. Relatively little is known about the Genus, but some striking video of a swimming specimen is here. http://www.realmonstrosities.com/2012/0 ... teris.html The slide is in good condition for it's age, and some drying of the mountant away from the subject, which might reduce its attraction for a collector, doesn't affect it from the point of view of a microscopist.
There was a fair amount of mounting debris scattered under the coverslip, which necessitated replacement of the background in Photoshop. I took two image sets of 20 and 21 images using polarised light with a home made plastic film retarder and a red/green selenite retarder slide and stitched them into a composite with Microsoft ICE. The objective was a Zeiss X4 planapochromat and the microscope a Nikon Diaphot with 0.52 phase/DIC LWD condenser. Camera was a Canon 40D. Magnification was X10 at the sensor.
Polarised light plus plastic film retarder. 35MP version here http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=ebb ... f35f3cf843
Polarised light plus red/green selenite slide. 35MP version here. http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=66b ... 734524cc3b
There was a fair amount of mounting debris scattered under the coverslip, which necessitated replacement of the background in Photoshop. I took two image sets of 20 and 21 images using polarised light with a home made plastic film retarder and a red/green selenite retarder slide and stitched them into a composite with Microsoft ICE. The objective was a Zeiss X4 planapochromat and the microscope a Nikon Diaphot with 0.52 phase/DIC LWD condenser. Camera was a Canon 40D. Magnification was X10 at the sensor.
Polarised light plus plastic film retarder. 35MP version here http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=ebb ... f35f3cf843
Polarised light plus red/green selenite slide. 35MP version here. http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=66b ... 734524cc3b
Leitz Ortholux 1, Zeiss standard, Nikon Diaphot inverted, Canon photographic gear
- Cactusdave
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Thanks Mitch and Linden. It's certainly an amazing creature and I was surprised and delighted to find such a well preserved mounted specimen showing such good detail. There was a lot of Photoshop work involved in cleaning up the images though, as numerous particles of debris that showed up as very bright spots under polarised light, were scattered all over the specimen and had to be carefully cloned out.
Leitz Ortholux 1, Zeiss standard, Nikon Diaphot inverted, Canon photographic gear
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