I can haz microscope!
I have a microscope! This is a quickish post so you'll just have to imagine all the bouncy squeeing, but I got it on eBay, wound up paying much less than I expected to and so had some money left to buy a decent ccd camera to use with it! It's an old Olympus E model binocular 'scope with Koehler illumination and a bunch of other bells and whistles. Here's a pic of the scope:
And here's the first vaguely decent pics I've gotten out of it! Tips of strands of black brush algae attached to a Vallisneria leaf that I fished out of my aquarium:
More black brush algae, with mysterious podlike attachments and spicules:
A bit of Vallisneria leaf clearly showing a ton of chloroplasts:
And here's the first vaguely decent pics I've gotten out of it! Tips of strands of black brush algae attached to a Vallisneria leaf that I fished out of my aquarium:
More black brush algae, with mysterious podlike attachments and spicules:
A bit of Vallisneria leaf clearly showing a ton of chloroplasts: