Spores on the Wind-Part 1
Leitz Ortholux
Transmitted light brightfield
Leitz 54x Fluorite objective oiled, NA 0.95
8x GF WFC projection eyepiece with 1/2x relay lens
Strobe illumination
Canon 10D
Photoshop
Like many people in the world I suffer certain times of the year from an allergic reaction to plant pollens in the air. Five years ago I set out to take a look at these pollens. I constructed an air sampling device which, unfortunately, failed completely to catch a single pollen.
It did however turn out to be remarkably efficient at collecting tens of thousands of mold spores. Along with these were insect parts, plant parts, even diatoms and algae. Also the microscopic garbage in the air including my winter favorite, wood ash from fireplaces and wood stoves still showing cellular structure!
I finally have a microscope set up well enough to do justice to the collections of my multi-year experiment. The spores exhibit a great variety of forms, color and size as well as how they get collected in my chamber. Most come in singly, while others always come in groups. Either way they are all entering our lungs and sticking to our eyes every day. So I would like to show you what they look like.
Finally I begin my atlas of the unidentified spores for all of you to enjoy. The next several submissions will be subjects captured in the summer between July and August.
On a technical note, you will notice a red cast to the background of the images that have lighter spores in them. The subjects were all illuminated with a strobe under the control of a C. Krebs controller with no filters in the optical path. Only a glass sheet type beam splitter. Maybe one you more experienced imagers can help me to diagnose this problem.
Walt
