Atlas Moth "Black Hole" scales, Scitex 110mm S-3

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Lou Jost
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Atlas Moth "Black Hole" scales, Scitex 110mm S-3

Post by Lou Jost »

The tips of the forewings on many large Satutrniid moths are not flat but wavy. In the Atlas moth a deep velvety black eyespot is embedded in the waves.

These are taken with the Scitex S-3 110mm apo scanner lens, and Pentax K-1 FF camera using pixel shift. Stacked in Zerene from jpgs, no sharpening apart from the camera's sharpening when generating jpgs from RAW.

Crop of eyespot and neighboring waves:
Image

More extreme crop of eyespot:
Image

Whole image that is the source of the above crops:
Image

100% crop of the extreme bottom right corner of the full image:
Image

Here I have taken a closer photo of the edge of the spot and the bright scales that swirl around it, using a 10x Mitutoyo on a 300mm Nikon f/4.5 ED-IF lens. I've boosted the shadows. Note how many of the black scales are not flat but placed more like light baffles:
Image
Last edited by Lou Jost on Thu Sep 06, 2018 9:44 am, edited 2 times in total.

RobertOToole
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Post by RobertOToole »

Hi Lou,

Love the pastel colors and the soft light.

What was the magnification with the 110?

Robert

Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

Thanks Robert. It is an amazing moth. The Atlas moth subspecies is A. atlas rosea.

The magnification is about 1.4x. Lens threads towards camera.

The light comes from a Godox diffuser dome. Last week I learned to cut glass (bloody process) and built a glass dustproof chamber for moths and other things, with one of these domes providing the light.

RobertOToole
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Post by RobertOToole »

Lou Jost wrote:Thanks Robert. It is an amazing moth. The Atlas moth subspecies is A. atlas rosea.
Sounds awesome, and huge. These are not a local species? Atlas are from Asia?
Lou Jost wrote:The magnification is about 1.4x. Lens threads towards camera.
Nice results, thats a lot of extension for a true 110mm!

This is what I got a while back trying to get a SK 90mm line-scan lens to 2x! I think I may have ended up a little short and gave up.

Image
Lou Jost wrote:The light comes from a Godox diffuser dome. Last week I learned to cut glass (bloody process) and built a glass dustproof chamber for moths and other things, with one of these domes providing the light.
Nice project.

Robert

Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

Robert, yes, the Atlas moths are Asian. That was a purchased specimen.

We do have very similar native species in the genus Rothschildia. Here's one I photographed recently in one of our reserves:

Olympus PEN-F, automatic focus bracketing:
Image

I don't find these extensions to be awkward at all. A Nikon bellows is great for that. Extra tubes can be added if needed.

RobertOToole
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Post by RobertOToole »

Beautiful moth. Love the pink details.

Are those transparent spots?

Reminds me of the cecropia moth. I was lucky to be in Arkansas once when a big tornado storm ripped through the area and triggered the cecropia to emerge all at once. The cecropia is the biggest in N. America.

Robert

Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

Thanks Robert, yes, those are transparent windows that make the moth seem less moth-like when seen from below. And yes, it does resemble a Cecropia. I used to raise Cecropias in my basement when I was a kid, and they were quite a thrill to see up close.

WalterD
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Post by WalterD »

Beautiful images Lou, the quality of the pictures is excellent, crisp with very nice colors and tones. The blackness is remarkable though.

By coincidence I'm currently also observing an atlas moth through the microscope! Your images will beat many similar low magnification microscope pics.

Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

Thanks very much Walter. These moths are a real pleasure to explore!

I am very happy with the lens and glad to have a pixel-shifting camera that can take full advantage of it.

WalterD
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Post by WalterD »

Congratulations with that camera Lou. I was not aware of pixel shifting but understood in this body it results in increased resolution and better colour management. The specs of this Pentax K-1 (their first full frame, I noted) are overwhelming: 14 raw images per second and 204.800 as max. iso value!
Curious how it will act paired with other microscope objectives/ in a microscope setup... not sure you already did this.
Surely the Atlas Moth is cool (to use a modern expression). Last week I bought a set of butterflies with minor damage, including these. I'm not sure about the differencess between moths and butterflies, however on this species I already noted a variety of scales shapes, in some parts long and thin like serpentines. The "windows" in their wings are striking.

Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

The camera is indeed marvelous, except that it has a Pentax lens mount. I converted it to a Nikon mount without much difficulty, though.
It also closes the shutter during image processing, for some crazy reason. Since this happens after exposure, it doesn't directly cause problems, but the vibration might cause a specimen to move slightly between exposures. There are also some peculiar color renditions in some RAW converters; in RAW Therapee these can be fixed by choosing not to use the default camera profile.

I have made photos with 20x objectives and lower objectives, with no problems. I don't foresee any problems (apart from those mentioned above) at any m.

For this camera, pixel shifting gives it complete RGB color info at each pixel, so the RAW files are 160Mb each. This removes the need to interpoiate pixels (an issue casued by the Bayer filter). It doesn't directly increase the nominal resolution of the image, though.

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