Slides, slips 'n bulbs

[Planapo]

With my microscope complete and DIC, with Charlie's great help, now properly set-up and running, I need to shop for these little but important things. And after a bad shopping experience with rubbish microscopic slides that were advertised as "best quality", I would like to ask you, the experienced photomicrographers and microscopists of our nice community on pmg.net, what specific high quality slides and cover slips you use and where you buy them from.

Cover slips: I've read that with photomicrography one should pay attention to use cover slips as close as possible to the 0.17 mm thickness that the objectives are corrected for and that some therefore even measure the thickness of their slips and clean the good ones to use them again.

Regarding slides: I would like quality ones with round, ground edges to not scratch my scope's stage surface and to not have glass splinters all over the place. I would further prefer slides larger than the standard 1" x 3" size. So far I could not find a source where to buy such larger, good quality round grounded slides. Preferably I would like to buy at this side of the big pond, but am prepared to order a larger number (to keep shipping costs reasonably appropriate) from overseas.

Halogen lamp bulbs: I read in the BHS's manual that I need "12V 100W HAL-L" lamps. The ones I've found are those: OSRAM "Xenophot HLX 64625 12V 100W"
http://www.ebay.de/itm/5-x-Osram-Xenoph ... 27bf95d76e
I've found out that these Osram lamps are used with microscopes, but would you recommend them (for the BHS) or should I get something else?

Thanks in advance for your input.

--Betty

[NikonUser]

I bought large slides and coverslips from ted pella;

http://www.tedpella.com/histo_html/slides.htm

seems they have distributors in Germany.

Make sure your BHS has the larger sized clips for holding the large slides

[Charles Krebs]

The Olympus bulb # for the BHS is 8-C406 (Phillips #7724JC)

The ones you mentioned has different specs... slightly brighter and slightly higher color temp, but vastly shorter "burn time". You can see the specs on these pages:

http://www.donsbulbs.com/cgi-bin/r/b.pl ... ympus.html
http://www.donsbulbs.com/cgi-bin/r/b.pl ... osram.html (copy and paste full URL)

We once talked about cover slips here:
http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... hp?p=67868

I really prefer 2x3" slides with 24x50mm coverslips.

[Planapo]

Tony, Charles, thanks for your help.

I'm glad that I asked as otherwise I would have gotten me the wrong Osram bulbs. Donsbulbs.com provides the info that Osram #64623 matches with the original Olympus. They are readily available over here.

--Betty

[discomorphella]

Ted Pella is a great source. You can also find professional grade slides (Corning, Gold-Seal etc) at Electron Microscopy Sciences (www.emsdiasum.com). I also will occassionally get new, unopened boxes of Gold Seal slides, though typically 25x75 mm, through ebay. I do find that unless you get the premium brands of slides, you will end up cleaning each and every one prior to using them, even if they advertise being "precleaned". Likewise for coverslips. I try to find# 1 1/2 coverslips that are very close to 170 microns, but for the larger sizes that I like to use, such as 22x40 or 22x50 I often end up using #1 instead since they are easier to find.
It will help to get some good (reagent, electronic or LCMS) grade isopropanol or ethanol for cleaning both slides and lenses. I find that a 50% isopropanol solution is great for cleaning off already used slides.
Have fun,

David

[Planapo]

David, Thank you for the further, helpful information!
I hope that soon I will have all parts together to finally do photomicrography, and then expect to join the club of meticulous glass cleaners.

--Betty