Several views of a copepod

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Sun Dec 31, 2006 12:51 am

Once in a while everything comes together nicely...

A couple of days ago, Bernhard posted a copepod showing some nice details of muscles and intestines. I thought that was pretty cool!

Tonight, a copepod showed up in a drop of what I had expected to be just protozoa. The camera was mounted, I knew how to set the illumination, and the copepod was both agreeable and constrained.

Panel 1. Copepod near small ciliates (Colpidium?), copepod eating small ciliate!
10X NA 0.25 and 40X NA 0.65 objectives, 10X eyepiece, Canod SD 700 IS camera at various zooms.

Panel 2. Guts and muscles of copepod.
40X NA 0.65 objective, 10X eyepiece, Canod SD 700 IS camera at different zooms. Brightfield illumination, tungsten bulb.

Image 3. Closer view of guts and muscles. This is the same image as at the bottom of the previous panel, but larger and green channel only.

All images have been level adjusted and sharpened slightly to bring out detail.

I have to admit, this is amusing -- even though I don't have a clue about most of what I'm looking at!

--Rik

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Sun Dec 31, 2006 5:24 pm

Good to see the microscope finally getting some exercise!

I have to admit, this is amusing -- even though I don't have a clue about most of what I'm looking at!

One of the things that make it so much fun! All you need are a few drops of water from old birdbath and you can enter a world with unfamiliar creatures that boggle the imagination.

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Sun Dec 31, 2006 7:55 pm

Nice shots there Rik, especially the last one. Lots of good stuff in there.

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Mon Jan 01, 2007 12:21 am

> ...unfamiliar creatures that boggle the imagination...

Ain't that the truth!

> ...lots of good stuff in there...

It's interesting... I was just looking at that last shot, and it struck me as being ever so much like what happens when you stick some familiar animal in a medical scanner. These images come out, and they're obviously just loaded with detail, but you desperately need a "map of the cat" [*] to have any clue what you're looking at!

Thanks for the feedback, guys!

--Rik

* From "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman", pg.72. Amazon "Search Inside" can find it for you -- search on "map cat".