I try and keep an eye out for old and antique microscope slides as they often provide some really interesting subjects for not much money (in some cases, although it should be said that some old microscope slides command extremely high prices). Today’s post shares two slides, a diatom arrangement by Richard Suter, and a bacteriastrum strew (mounter unknown).

First the diatom arrangement slide by Suter described as being Heliopelta Metii. Here’s the slide, taken with 450nm light and using a 10x Nikon Fluor NA 0.5 objective, cropped slightly to removed the dark corners of the image.

The slide is very clean and all the diatoms intact. A lovely arrangement. And a closeup of part of the slide (just from cropping the original image).

The above was a single image, so will be worth coming back to for some stacking at some point with a higher magnification. A very pretty slide and well worth the investment. This is the slide itself.

The second slide for today is a Bacteriastrum strew. These diatoms are fragile and often break up, making them more of an unusual subject to find. First the slide itself (not sure as to the mounter of this one – if you know drop me an email please).

And some images of the slide, again taken with 450nm LED light and the Nikon 10x NA 0.5 Fluor objective. Shown as full frames (or nearly full frames) and a couple of tighter crops.

Full frame (very slightly cropped to remove dark corners).

Overall these two slides were really pretty and very interesting to look at. It is well worth keeping and eye out for interesting looking old slides, as other they can be cheap way to get some really well prepared subjects. As always, thanks for reading, and if you’d like to know more about my work I can be reached here.