Single pollen grain of Erodium cicutarium

[rjlittlefield]

As requested by Ken Nelson, in connection with my macro shot of this flower.

--Rik

Technical: aus Jena Laboval 2 microscope with Edmund Scientific 20X NA 0.40 achromat objective. Canon SD700 IS camera through eyepiece at 4X optical zoom. Stacked with Helicon Focus, 22 frames with unknown step (monitored through eyepiece while shooting). Strongly sharpened and cropped.

[Bruce Williams]

Excellent follow-up images Rik (with your 2 postings in the Macro/Close-up forum) ...and this is the point where Ken asks for an SEM image to complete the series

It is extraordinary just how much detail is revealed through the light microscope. Although even your first posting hinted at the possibility of surface sculpturing of some kind and pic2 suggested that the grains might have a slightly (maybe one sided) toroidal geometry.

On a lighter note, your micrograph reminds me of the shell-eating shark tooth I posted some months ago: Unusual tooth of Ptychodus whipplei .

Bruce

[Moebius]

Rik,

Thanks for the photo. Odd looking asymmetrirical shape on these and the texture as well.

Now about SEM?

K

[Thomas Ashcraft]

Hi Rik,

Thanks for the pollen shot. I hope to see more pollen images in the forum.

Pollen is sort of challenging in the light microscope.

Tom

[rjlittlefield]

SEM -- don't I wish! But those are still quite a bit beyond both my budget and the load limit of my home floor joists.

I see I forgot to mention that this was stacked, also. I'll go fix that. I did finally figure out the trick for stacking with that SD700 camera. It's very persistent about auto-focusing, but only if you fully release the shutter button between exposures. Keep the button half-pressed, and the camera just sits there and takes pictures without refocusing.

Bruce, it's funny you should mention that fossil -- I had exactly the same thought!

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

--Rik