Big hairy spider

Hairyduck · Post by **Hairyduck** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 1:39 am

well its skin anyway...

This is my first ever prepared bit of tissue

common house spider, 44 images stacked in hf

Olympus BHA, Brightfield, Nikon CFN plan apo 20x/0.75

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 3:15 am

Spiders give me the "willies."

This is something that I would probably have not ever seen unless I were to have purchased a prepared slide of such a specimen. Very nice stack

Hairyduck · Post by **Hairyduck** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 5:18 am

I think I'd probably avoid live specimins too, thankfully one of our cats brought this one in a little worse for wear

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 8:33 am

Very nice!

I am interested to see you've happened across some of the same feathered hairs that I was surprised to see on the pedipalp I shot over in Macro.

--Rik

Hairyduck · Post by **Hairyduck** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 8:54 am

yeah, I was surprised to see them in your pic too, the ones in this shot are only about 10 microns long

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 9:05 am

Hairyduck wrote:the ones in this shot are only about 10 microns long

Hhmm... Can you check your calculations/measurements about that number?

If you're talking about the full length of a feathered hair, then the total field width of your photo would be only about 25 microns -- over an order of magnitude smaller than what's typical for a 20X objective.

Also an NA 0.75 objective will only resolve to about 0.37 microns (ref), about 27 features in 10 microns. Your pictures are a lot sharper than that.

The hairs on my spider's pedipalp are around 100 microns long. I'll bet yours are too.

--Rik

Hairyduck · Post by **Hairyduck** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 9:20 am

yes, you're right, I was stupidly going by the number on my stage micrometer

I'll get the hang of these small measurements yet

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 9:28 am

Hairyduck,

Excellent shot! I particularly like they way it works on both the "informational" level as well as an aesthetic/graphic level.

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 9:40 am

Hairyduck wrote:I'll get the hang of these small measurements yet

The reason I crosscheck these numbers so carefully is because I mess them up so often myself!

--Rik

Hairyduck · Post by **Hairyduck** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 9:57 am

Thanks Charles, getting there slowly!

Cyclops · Post by **Cyclops** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 3:23 pm

Wow great shots. I for one love spiders. Good thing really considering I have 5 as pets,;)