It’s always nice to get some recognition for your work, and this year I managed to get an award for photomicrography from the Quekett Microscopical Club for one of my diatom pictures.

The slide was of Triceratium polycistinorum from Kamischev, Russia. Current name Entogoniopsis polycistinora. Single example on the slide. Described as ‘Rare’. Prepared by Sidney Chaffers. Olympus BHB microscope using 450nm LED light. 40x Leitz Pl Apo NA 1.00 oil immersion objective. Olympus Aplanat Achromat oil immersion condenser, brightfield. 2.5x Nikon CF PL photo-eyepiece. Monochrome-converted Nikon d850 camera. 43 images stacked in Zerene (Pmax). Imaging took about two hours including collection of the images, stacking and processing. Judge’s comment: Another amazingly detailed image of a diatom which indicates really extraordinary lighting and imaging and the fact that it has taken 43 separate photographs to achieve this is remarkable. The fact that this particular species is triangular with a circular centre gives it even more resonance as a photograph.

The image above has been reduced in resolution for sharing. The full sized image can be seen (along with many, many other diatom images) on my Diatom Imaging website here.

I can strongly recommend looking at joining a club such as the Quekett Microscopical Club or Postal Microscopical Society. Not only will you gain access to an amazing background of microscopy, putting your images in for judging or publishing gives you critique on your technique and how you can improve it.