Cat hairs under polarized light

Images made through a microscope. All subject types.

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pwnell
Posts: 2035
Joined: Fri Dec 18, 2009 4:59 pm
Location: Tsawwassen, Canada

Cat hairs under polarized light

Post by pwnell »

I have two cats. One a common house cat, the other a bengal breed. When I photograph them, I noticed that my house cat looked pretty much the same under diffused light and sun light. The bengal on the other hand, looks like its fur sparkles under sun light. So I was curious to see if I could determine why by looking at their hair under the microscope.

I took one hair from each cat and placed it under a 20x objective and polarized light. Take note that the exposure was the same, except that for my house cat's hair, the exposure duration is double that of the bengal otherwise the image would have been black. The difference is startling.

House cat
Image

Bengal cat
Image

specious_reasons
Posts: 107
Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2009 12:46 pm
Location: Woodridge, IL

Post by specious_reasons »

Cool!

I'll have to try that with my cats.

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