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Microscopy – Actinoptychus heliopelta from Eric Impey slide

A couple of weeks ago I had a box of assorted slides come through which have turned out to have some real gems in it (I shared some initial images here). Today’s post looks at another slide from the box – an Actinoptychus heliopelta by Eric Impey from 1970. Images were done on my modified Olympus BHB microscope using 450nm light (slightly oblique). The objective for the main image was a Leitz 63x Pl Apo NA 1.4 which recently arrived from JB Microscopes. A Nikon CF 5x photoeyepiece was used. 27 images were stacked in Zerene. Images have been reduced in resolution for sharing.

Here’s the main image.

Actinoptychus heliopelta from a slide by Eric Impey. Leitz 63x Pl Apo NA 1.4 objective

The sample is beautiful and there is plenty of detail on there, some of which is lost on here as I had to reduce the resolution for sharing. Below is part of the image shown at the original resolution.

Crop from the main image, shown at original resolution

The slide itself has 3 examples of the diatom on it, shown below (single image, not stacked, using a Nikon 20x Plan Apo objective). The one in the main image is actually the one on the right hand side of the image below.

3 diatoms from the Eric Impey slide

And the slide itself. The diatoms came from Dunkrik, Maryland. The mount is Naphrax, and it is a very well made slide, which even has a slightly decorative ringing around the coverslip.

Eric Impey slide of Actinoptychus heliopelta

As an aside, I think I have spent too much time looking at diatoms this weekend. This was what I saw when I looked down inside a plastic coke bottle…..

Coke bottle model of a diatom

Before I go, being an equipment geek, I’ll also share the objective as I was very impressed by the quality of the image it produced. It’s a Leitz 63x Pl Apo NA 1.4, oil immersion. Here it is alongside it’s big(ger) brother, the 100x with an adjustable iris, which is also an excellent performer.

Leitz 63x and 100x Pl Apo objectives

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I continue to be amazed by the quality of some of these older slides, and would well recommend them for anyone interested in looking for samples to image. This slide cost me all of £5.50 plus postage. If you don’t want to buy slides but relish new slides to look at, the Postal Microscopical Society offers members the chance to borrow slides from their collection and is well worth checking out. Thanks for reading and if you’d like to know more about this or other aspects of my work I can be reached here.