resolution target
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Hi
Does anyone know a good (cheap) place to get a positive high resolution target for a bright field microscope (50X, N.A. 0.55). Inside the EU would be best. Thanks Thomas ------------------------------------------------------------- Thomas Aabo Phone: +45 35333636 M.Sc., Ph.D student, [hidden email] University of Copenhagen Department of Food Science Rolighedsvej 30 1958 Frederiksberg C Denmark www.ifv.life.ku.dk ------------------------------------------------------------- |
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Hi Thomas,
A high resolution target for what exactly? Calibration in um? Or perhaps phase contrast resolution? Try http://www.graticules.com in any case. NPL certification of the um scale is nice but if you aren't working to GLP or ISO9001 it's not absolutely necessary. Depends on what you call cheap. I did miss a '1mm scale divided by 100' Graticules calibration slide on eBay last week that went for £21. Otherwise expect to pay over £200. Also look at the following links from our website: Microscopy Supplies Graticules.com for microscope reticules, calibration slides and 'The England Finder' http://www.graticules.com Agar Scientific [UK] for microscopy supplies http://www.agarscientific.com Raymond Lamb [UK] for microscopy supplies http://www.ralamb.co.uk VWR International [formally BDH] for microscopy supplies http://www.vwr.com The PolySciences website shop for all things fluorescent and particulate http://www.polysciences.com/shop Invitrogen: Labelling and detection of biomolecules, cells, tissues [home of the Alexa dyes] http://probes.invitrogen.com/handbook Invitrogen produce high quality triple labeled fluorescent stained BPAE cells and kidney sections on glass slides to ensure the microscope is working well [confocal or fluorescence, but not brightfield]. Keith --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr Keith J. Morris, Molecular Cytogenetics and Microscopy Core, Laboratory 00/069 and 00/070, The Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, Roosevelt Drive, Oxford OX3 7BN, United Kingdom. Telephone: +44 (0)1865 287568 Email: [hidden email] Web-pages: http://www.well.ox.ac.uk/cytogenetics/ -----Original Message----- From: Confocal Microscopy List [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Thomas Aabo Sent: 21 July 2009 13:12 To: [hidden email] Subject: resolution target Hi Does anyone know a good (cheap) place to get a positive high resolution target for a bright field microscope (50X, N.A. 0.55). Inside the EU would be best. Thanks Thomas ------------------------------------------------------------- Thomas Aabo Phone: +45 35333636 M.Sc., Ph.D student, [hidden email] University of Copenhagen Department of Food Science Rolighedsvej 30 1958 Frederiksberg C Denmark www.ifv.life.ku.dk ------------------------------------------------------------- |
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In reply to this post by Thomas Aabo
Hi Thomas,
Mr Klaus Kemp in the UK used to make diatom slides, including one with 8 species of diatoms covering a broad range of resolutions. The slides were about 20 Euros or so. I am not sure whether he is still in business though. Below is his web site, and the list of diatoms on his 8-form test plate. Julio.
There also used to be an article by Dave Walker: Counting the dots: Giving Microscopes a workout using diatom test slides at www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/artoct99/dwdiatom.html the article has been inaccessible for a while though -- Julio Vazquez Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center Seattle, WA 98109-1024 == On Jul 21, 2009, at 5:11 AM, Thomas Aabo wrote:
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cheers, Rosemary Rosemary White CSIRO Plant Industry GPO Box 1600 Canberra, ACT 2601 Australia ph 61 2 6246 5475 fx 61 2 6246 5334 On 22/07/09 1:49 AM, "Julio Vazquez" <jvazquez@...> wrote: Hi Thomas, |
 
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Keith Morris |
Re: Phase contrast resolution target
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In reply to this post by Keith Morris
Hi Shalin
NPL/HSE resolution test slide is for either dark field or phase contrast microscopy The UK's NPL laboratory originally made the NPL/HSE phase contrast resolution slide. You focused onto the slide and a series of lines appeared. The smallest one you could see was naturally the best Ph resolution at that magnification. I bought mine back in the late 1980s/early 1990s, but recently I've not seen them about that much [my old NPL phase slide is now lost since our labs at Harwell folded]. http://annhyg.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/28/2/237.pdf says it all about the slide A while ago I had trouble locating one, but I see it's about again and easy to obtain, e.g. http://www.zefon.com/store/hse-npl-phase-shift-test-slide.html and details are on NPL's website: http://www.npl.co.uk/reference/faqs/what-is-an-npl-hse-test-slide-and-where- can-i-obtain-one-(faq-length) We used the slide as we were heavily involved in asbestos and glass fibre durability/toxicology studies, and it's pretty essential for asbestos monitoring to ensure your microscope is up to detecting the fibres. Regards Keith --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr Keith J. Morris, Molecular Cytogenetics and Microscopy Core, Laboratory 00/069 and 00/070, The Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, Roosevelt Drive, Oxford OX3 7BN, United Kingdom. Telephone: +44 (0)1865 287568 Email: [hidden email] Web-pages: http://www.well.ox.ac.uk/cytogenetics/ -----Original Message----- From: Shalin Mehta [mailto:[hidden email]] Sent: 22 July 2009 07:36 To: [hidden email] Subject: Re: resolution target Hi Keith, On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 8:54 PM, Keith Morris<[hidden email]> wrote: > Hi Thomas, > > A high resolution target for what exactly? Calibration in um? Or perhaps > phase contrast resolution? > I got curious that you mention phase contrast resolution target. Is there a transparent resolution target on market whose thickness changes at well defined intervals? Phase gratings are useful but they do not offer benefits of things like spoke pattern. I am involved with phase imaging and have been searching such a target since sometime. If you can point me to some such source that will be great. There used to be an equivalent of USAF target for phase microscopy called Richardson test slide but the company went out of business. best Shalin mobile: +65-90694182 blog: shalin.wordpress.com Bioimaging Lab, Block-E3A, #7-10 Div of Bioengineering, NUS Singapore 117574 website: http://www.bioeng.nus.edu.sg/optbioimaging/colin/people.asp#shalinm |
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In reply to this post by Rosemary.White
If it’s decent samples to
view under the microscope then I also use Klaus Kemps diatom slides, and they
are well suited to phase contrast microscopes and just bright-field [where they
can look a tad dull]. Always buy the 50 [mine are 100] diatom exhibition set
though, it’s well worth the extra £s over the simple line of diatoms [the
exhibition diatoms are arranged in a large circle, see links below]. These
slides are cheaper to buy direct from Klaus than via eBay. I avoid the
‘penny farthing’ cutesy sets. I do produce my own Foraminifera test slides that can be fun. You can get
these ‘sand’ samples from ebay. Search ‘Sand Sample (Foraminifera) make Microscope
microslides’ in ebay.co.uk. See: http://www.fernwood-nursery.co.uk/sand/danny.htm for
things to do with them [these shells appear larger than those found in the eBay
Foraminifera sand samples]. Buy them for a few quid
at: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Sand-Sample-Foraminifera-make-Microscope-microslides.
You can just scatter the ‘sand’ lightly over a slide and seal on a
cover slip with nail varnish. You find micro snail shells [about 200um wide],
bits of larger shells, arthropod fragments, coral fragments and such like, as
well as quartz sand that looks good under phase contrast [and best of all under
darkfield with two polarizer’s, e.g. from DIC optics]. Again a tiny bit
dull in comparison just under bright-field, but still well worth a view, although
they are very 3D so expect more depth of focus effects compared to flatter diatoms.
In addition I have a couple of
standard high quality stained histological sections of plant stems [supplied by
Leica] that look very nice under both brightfield and fluorescence [microscope
engineers seem to use these a lot]. I also use a few tatty H&E stained
animal tissue to check evenness of fluorescence as they fluoresce well [along
with dried salt crystals doped with 0.02 um FITC spheres look nice and do the
same job]. I also have both the Invitrogen slides [triple fluorescence labels
of BPAE cells and a kidney section] I mentioned in my last post – great
for confocals but no good for brightfield. Even dried felt pen marker dots of
various colours can look OK on plastic Petri dishes - I use them to easily test
which way the inverted microscope is focusing [say for automatic Z stacks] or
whether the XY view is inverted on the VDU screen. Plus there’s things
like cheapo laser printer toner soot [ultrafine very black spheres], gel
polymer spheres or fantastically expensive fluorescent particles of known size
like Invitrogen’s FocalCheck. For testing optics, i.e. cleanness of the
lenses or evenness of illumination, really any decent suitable specimen will
do. For kids and/or fun do try and
grow your own crystals on a glass slide. Make a saturated salt solution [e.g.
NaCL or CuSO4]. Place a large drop on a slide and leave to evaporate. As the
water evaporates the crystals form in the solution – best viewed well
before the water evaporates completely. NaCl crystal cubes look great as say 40
to 200x mag, and are fine under bright-field [but be careful not to spill the
solution is using an inverted microscope]. I also have a set of J B Dancer
microphotographs that can be amusing [well for a microscopist] – my
slides are 1990’s copies of Dancers originals and cost £30 for 5
different images from eBay: Queen Victoria and babies, Raphael’s Madonna
and child [so like Victorian naturalists you can see God down the microscope],
etc.. They are easily forged so copies are fine. See http://www.gpmatthews.nildram.co.uk/microscopes/microphotos.html ------------------------------------------------------------ Optical Microscope Enthusiast
Sites Microscopy UK - thousands of
microscopy related pages for kids & enthusiasts Ask-a-microscopist and
list-server postings [with an electron microscopy bias] The Science for Fun website for
older school-kids & parents The McCrone atlas of
microscopic particles - many images are pay to view Klaus
Kemp's diatom & butterfly scale microscopy slides - to purchase Regards Keith --------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Confocal Microscopy
List [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Rosemary
White Another way to test optics is to coat a
clean, but not ultraclean, glass slide with a reasonable amount of gold (i.e.
thicker than you’d normally use for SEM) in a standard sputter coater,
then wipe the coated surface very gently. This will produce tiny
pinholes, just select the size you want to use. To preserve the surface,
glue a long coverslip on top with your preferred mountant, that way you have
the correct amount of glass between objective and object. It’s a
good way of testing chromatic aberration, for example. Hi Thomas,
Hi
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cheers, Rosemary On 24/07/09 10:54 PM, "Keith Morris" <kjmorris@...> wrote: If it’s decent samples to view under the microscope then I also use Klaus Kemps diatom slides, and they are well suited to phase contrast microscopes and just bright-field [where they can look a tad dull]. Always buy the 50 [mine are 100] diatom exhibition set though, it’s well worth the extra £s over the simple line of diatoms [the exhibition diatoms are arranged in a large circle, see links below]. These slides are cheaper to buy direct from Klaus than via eBay. I avoid the ‘penny farthing’ cutesy sets. |
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