Following Ken's advice, I researched Oil Objectives on the net. I found a wealth of information. The concept and method were easy for me to understand. Hopefully actually doing it will be too. I'll find out soon enough.
There were alot of sites that explained the principles of Oil Objectives and Immersion Oil, but one in particular was very succinct:
http://biology.clc.uc.edu/fankhauser/La ... ersion.htm
I then called Cargille Labs on the phone and talked with the tech. person there. He kept saying that their Type A SHOULD be fine. I have no idea what the index of refraction is of my Oil 97x objective. The tech was 99% sure it would work, so I have not tried to track down the index of refraction for now. I ordered Cargille's Type A Immersion Oil. If it is not right, he said the image will be blurry, but it won't hurt anything on the objective. If anybody reading this has any information to the contrary, please tell me now! I'll have the Cargille stuff next week.
By the way... Cargille has a minimum $35 order rule.(which I did not know) But, I sweet talked the nice lady who took the orders, and she accepted my $12 order for 4 ounces!
Immersion Oil
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Immersion Oil
Bill
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Charles Krebs
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Bill,
Type "A" is what you want.
Oil immersion is pretty straightforward. Just be prepared for the very short working distance. For good results the subject needs to be right against the cover slip. Also, once you have "oiled" the slide, be careful with your other objectives. It's easy to accidentally stick a non-oil objective into the stuff. It should not hurt the objective, but it is a pain to clean it completely (and it should best be cleaned right away). Your oil objective need not be completely cleaned after each use, but it's not a bad idea to wipe off the bulk of the oil that remains so that you don't inadvertantly get some on a slide where you don't want it. Todays oils don't "dry up", but if you know you are not going to be using your microscope for a long time then you might want to do a thorough cleaning of the oil objective.
Type "A" is what you want.
Oil immersion is pretty straightforward. Just be prepared for the very short working distance. For good results the subject needs to be right against the cover slip. Also, once you have "oiled" the slide, be careful with your other objectives. It's easy to accidentally stick a non-oil objective into the stuff. It should not hurt the objective, but it is a pain to clean it completely (and it should best be cleaned right away). Your oil objective need not be completely cleaned after each use, but it's not a bad idea to wipe off the bulk of the oil that remains so that you don't inadvertantly get some on a slide where you don't want it. Todays oils don't "dry up", but if you know you are not going to be using your microscope for a long time then you might want to do a thorough cleaning of the oil objective.