Unknown egg masses... any thoughts on (rough) ID

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Mon Jul 07, 2014 3:31 pm

These were found floating on the water surface of a pond sample. Eggs are in a gelatinous mass, each egg itself had a "textured" surface as seen in the first image.

I don't recognize it... any thoughts as to what they might be?

(Images are all darkfield with 4X, 10X, 20X, and 40X and 1.67 NFK photoeyepiece).

pwnell · Post by **pwnell** » Mon Jul 07, 2014 4:30 pm

Incredibly well done. I cannot help with an ID but they sure are pretty. Looks like fortune cookies.

Jacek · Post by **Jacek** » Mon Jul 07, 2014 11:05 pm

Do not know what it is, but the pictures beautiful

arturoag75 · Post by **arturoag75** » Tue Jul 08, 2014 12:31 am

Great shots

Ichthyophthirius · Post by **Ichthyophthirius** » Tue Jul 08, 2014 3:33 am

Hi Charles,

They appear to be arthropod eggs (segmentation is visible), but I have no ID either. They trick, of course, is to wait a few days and to see what hatches

Olympusman · Post by **Olympusman** » Tue Jul 08, 2014 8:13 am

Charles, Nice find whatever they are.

RogelioMoreno · Post by **RogelioMoreno** » Tue Jul 08, 2014 9:43 am

Lovely set!

Rogelio

piermicro · Post by **piermicro** » Tue Jul 08, 2014 11:09 am

Great as usual.

_Michal_ · Post by **_Michal_** » Wed Jul 09, 2014 1:37 am

Fantastic set, as usual.

Greenfields · Post by **Greenfields** » Wed Jul 09, 2014 10:15 am

Absolutely gorgeous images.

I apologise if this is a naive question to those who are familiar with darkfield technique, but have these been made using a vertical illuminator or with a darkfield condenser, please ?

Henry

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Wed Jul 09, 2014 11:21 am

Thanks for the kind remarks!

but have these been made using a vertical illuminator or with a darkfield condenser, please ?

These were taken using a dry (0.8-0.95) darkfield condenser.

trick, of course, is to wait a few days and to see what hatches

Keeping an eye on them... I'll post if and when they develop into something more recognizable.

pwnell · Post by **pwnell** » Wed Jul 09, 2014 2:30 pm

Charles Krebs wrote:
but have these been made using a vertical illuminator or with a darkfield condenser, please ?
These were taken using a dry (0.8-0.95) darkfield condenser.

I am curious to the dry darkfield condenser you are using for 40x/0.95? I had to purchase the U-DCW which is an oil darkfield condenser to get DF at 0.95 NA. The U-DCD stops at 0.8 NA.

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Wed Jul 09, 2014 4:28 pm

Waldo...

I also need to use an oiled darkfield condenser for the 40/0.95 S Plan Apo.

For this I used the 40/0.70 S Plan Achromat. This has the same NA as the 20X S Plan Apo (0.70) so there was likely very little (if anything) to gain over just cropping into a shot made with the 20/0.70 other than lower overall noise because I made use of the full sensor. Inherently not a lot of fine detail in this subject at this stage, and especially so when looking "through" the gel and egg casing.

carlos.uruguay · Post by **carlos.uruguay** » Wed Jul 09, 2014 7:12 pm

Super!
(as always)

Unknown egg masses... any thoughts on (rough) ID

Unknown egg masses... any thoughts on (rough) ID

Egg masses