Dinoflagellates

Linden.g · Post by **Linden.g** » Tue May 24, 2011 8:13 pm

My friends marine tank bloomed with brown slime. This was a pure biolayer of these guys. 5 frame stack, DIC 40x S-plan achromat objective

René · Post by **René** » Wed May 25, 2011 2:21 am

wow, nice image. I would say it is Pyrophacus steinii. We don't see it over here, but the other sp P.horologium is far less armoured and less flat. You would need to see the structure of the surface plates to be sure. Try a little bleach, couple of minutes, press the coverlip slightly to drive off the protoplast, with some luck and skill the theca divides in the bottom and upper half. Phase contrast and DIC works very well for showing the structure.

Nice culture!

René

Linden.g · Post by **Linden.g** » Wed May 25, 2011 6:17 pm

Hi René, thanks for the ID. I'll see what I can do with the theca prep.
Linden

Marek Mis · Post by **Marek Mis** » Wed May 25, 2011 11:50 pm

Linden,
Very good image !
I use Olympus 40 x s planachromat, too. But I never achieve such quality (such details). Apart from this objective I use Olympus NFK 2,5 x photoeyepiece. I don't know what is wrong. I use old CZJ microscope - Lumipan. Perhaps I need to insert any lens into my tube ? If about splan apochromat (I have 10 x one) the quality is very good. Could you give me any advice ?

Regards

Marek

Linden.g · Post by **Linden.g** » Thu May 26, 2011 5:25 am

Marek

What issues are you seeing, general softness, chromatic aberation? Are you using bright field, can I see an example. I'm also using the NFK 2.5 but in combination with other significant modifcations:
1. High speed flash to eliminate vibration
2. DIC to increase contrast
3. Focus stacking to increase DOF
4. Significant post processing to increase contrast and reduce chromatic abarration

Hope this helps

Linden

Marek Mis · Post by **Marek Mis** » Fri May 27, 2011 3:40 am

Linden,

Thank you very much for your informations. I'll try to send to you some image taken with the 40 x s planachromat.

Marek