Ghostly spider??

gpmatthews · Post by **gpmatthews** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 3:52 pm

Microscope: Zeiss Standard
Ocular: Zeiss KPL-W 10/18
Objective: Zeiss 1.6/0.03 - 5/0.1
Crossed polarisers
Panorama mosaic of 9 images/MS ICE

The identity of the specimen eludes me beyond being an arachnid - can anyone decipher the slide label? (I think it's Trombidium, which makes it a spider mite) -

Mitch640 · Post by **Mitch640** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 4:06 pm

Nice image Graham. Where do you guys find these ancient slides?

gpmatthews · Post by **gpmatthews** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 4:15 pm

Mitch - in the mid 1970s, one of my father's friends died and, knowing my scientific interests, left me his microscopes, microscope books and slide collection. He had been an antique dealer and had managed to build up a collection of a few hundred slides, many of them nineteenth century.

I recently catalogued the slides - you can find the index with a slowly accumulating set of pictures at http://www.micromagus.net

Mitch640 · Post by **Mitch640** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 5:56 pm

Do they all have dates and a history?

These things have to be a priceless treasure.

gpmatthews · Post by **gpmatthews** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 11:16 pm

Some are dated, some are not. Some are by known makers, some are anonymous. This mite slide only has the one label, as shown above, so not a lot to go on. Many are in good condition, but some are the worse for time. You can often pick up old slides on eBay - CactusDave seems to be very successful in acquiring interesting slides.

Cactusdave · Post by **Cactusdave** » Mon Dec 05, 2011 12:37 am

Very interesting use of polarised light illumination. I've not come across a nice hairy spider mounted in a way to allow me to try this out myself. I'm very impressed with the result.