Re: More on A.pellucida

Discussion of KKemp material and imaging of Ap has been going on for
years on the yahoo microscope discussion group, you can find my images
overthere. It is similar to your result, but with an old microscope
with 15W Tungsten/420nm bluefilter, annular illumination with a
modified BF condenser and a 70 year old achromatic Beck 1.3 NA
objective.
Many others have done the same exercise with better results (then mine)
by playing with oblique illumination.
Indeed, lack of contrast is the bottleneck, caused by 'thin frustules'
(as KKemp calls it), ie little silicification between pores in the
striae. The (inter)striae themselves are heavily silicified bars,
therefore reasonably easy to image compared to the pores.

René.

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