Microscope dark field

[porina]

I have this microscope: http://www.brunelmicroscopes.co.uk/monocular-microscopes.html

 

Example of what my images currently look like: 

Actual photo taken by me in the past. My current setup passes light directly through the sample so the background is light.

 

I want to have stuff look like this (taken from youtube):

 

I think this is called a darkfield image. In the microscope page linked earlier, there is an accessory called "Dark ground condenser filter insert" that might be what I'm looking for. I've already sent them an email and await a reply.

 

I'm wondering if there's any way I can hack this sort of lighting before then? I'll go down the beach later to get a fresh sample of sea water to play with.

[porina]

Got a response from the seller. They do a cheap option and an expensive option. I have now ordered the latter. The cheap option only works at one magnification, the expensive one works at two.

[porina]

I got the new thing and installed it a moment ago. No idea what this is, but it was the first interesting thing I found in my current sample. I still got some tinkering with the setup to do and post processing image would help some more.

 

Also realised I basically just enabled dark mode.

[GOTSpectrum]

On 10/11/2024 at 2:15 PM, porina said:

I got the new thing and installed it a moment ago. No idea what this is, but it was the first interesting thing I found in my current sample. I still got some tinkering with the setup to do and post processing image would help some more.

 

Also realised I basically just enabled dark mode.

Looks like a microplastic, most probably from clothes. To me it looks like acrylic, but I'm not an expert 

 

[porina]

23 minutes ago, GOTSpectrum said:

Looks like a microplastic, most probably from clothes. To me it looks like acrylic, but I'm not an expert 

That's what rekindled my interest in microscopy. I saw videos on zooplankton interacting with microplastics and wanted to see what the local zooplankton were doing where I live. Hate to admit I've been lazy and haven't been out to get a sample of sea water since I got the dark field attachment. I need to read up on concentrating the sample since my first attempt earlier didn't have much of anything in it.

 

Even considering running something like a native nano marine tank. Nothing fancy, water, sand, some rocks and seaweed and see what hitches a ride with it. Used to be into tropical marine and I ended up with an algae factory.