This section of the website carries items of current and long term interest and will include the following: -
Meeting reports - reports from the London and regional meetings of the Club and associated groups (more detailed reports will appear in the member's area)
Meetings to attend - notices of meetings that are of interest to microscopists
Latest research
What's happening in Microscopy
General - items of a more general nature, but with a 'microscopical' flavour
Archived material - items from the main categories but from earlier years - see links on the left for these items. Due to the large amount of material that exists, the Archive wlll be divided into a number of pages - 01, 02 etc. More material will be included over time, so iit will always be worth taking a look.
News and reports - latest at the top:
Lichen Workshop
Saturday January 14th 2012
The meeting was most interesting, with Prof. Maurice Moss giving an introduction to lichens, with a selection of photographs. He also gave an overview of the available literature and had brought in a number of samples and microscope slides. We used the new Club Zeiss Standard microscope & Canon EOS550 to photograph these.
Maurice Moss
General view
Some of the Lichen specimens
The section of Peltigera shows the layer of cyanobacteria beneath the outer cortex of fungal tissue, which is quite compact, and above the loosely woven mycelium at the base of the lichen
(Above - x40-water)The section of Physcia aipolia shows an intact ascus full of brown ascospores and there is a single spore ejected from the ascus which clearly shows the characteristic cross wall and hour glass shaped cytoplasm within the brown walls
The section of xanthoria parietina has been stained with cotton blue in lactophenol and shows an isolated spore with characteristic thick walls at the centre and the cytoplasm at each end joined by a narrow bridge. Cottonj blue is a cytoplasmic stain and the colourless walls do not take up the stain
Microscopium report
Microscopium was held as usual at the end of October at St Stephens Church in St Albans. There were fewer sellers than usual, the Leeds contingent were committed to another event and, due to his recent accident, the president was unable to bring his usual range of microscopes and accessories. There were still some good microscopes available at quite reasonable cost, I noticed a Zeiss and Wild as well as some brass instruments. There were also other useful things, Joan Bingley had brought a variety of tools, many appeared unused. Maurice Moss had some chemistry glass ware, amongst other items.
Maurice and co 'Gossiping' towards the end of the day with empty tables showing the successful sales
Bill Krause had brought a selection of books which could be browsed. The Quekett 'shop' was there with Ray and Cherry Trapmore and several members took the opportunity to purchase Brian Bracegirdle's recent book on Photomicrography.
The highlight of the day was the collection of slides made by our late member John Wells. The family and friends had collected the slides which John was working on and sorted them into boxes with appropriate labels. Many were labelled 'Biosil' but it was also possible to find a few labelled by John. There was quite a scrum for the whole day as members sorted through the boxes and examined the sections. We all know how good John's preparations are from his many displays at club meetings and most members went away clutching a selection of slides.
Feverishly sorting through the slides made by John Wells to find the most covetable sets
Click on the images to see larger version
Ian and Jane Henderson provided tea and coffee throughout the day - our thanks to them.
Pam Hamer
Images and videos from Quekex 2011
Stack and Stitch - a presentation with Videos by David Linstead and Graham Matthews - click here to view
The Barnard Award for Excellence in Photomicrography is named in honour of J. E. Barnard, a leading expert in the field in the early 20th century and was President of the Royal Microscopical Society three times, and a Fellow of the Royal Society.
The Award is presented annually to those microscopists submitting photomicrographs or video recordings at the Annual Exhibition of Microscopy whose work has, in the opinion of the judges, achieved a high level of technical or aesthetic merit.
A selection of photos considered for the Barnard Awards - a Picassa album prepared by Graham Matthews - click here to view the slides or here to play a slideshow **
The Eric Marson Awards - Awards of Merit will be given to examples of excellent quality at the Annual Exhibition of the Quekett Microscopical Club where they will be displayed for other members and guests to inspect and admire.
This competition is a celebration of making microscope slides. It is designed to provide the opportunity to share good ideas and to develop and encourage the making of slides.
The OBJECTIVES are:
1. To recognise standards of excellence of Members in making permanent microscopical preparations.
2. To encourage Members to offer their best work for assessment and possible awards of a Certificate of Merit.
Slides from the Eric Marson Awards - another Picassa album prepared by Graham Matthew click here to view the slides or here to play a slideshow **
All images for Quekex 2011 are copyright© Graham Matthews and Daviid Linstead
Marson award winning slide - Lewis Woolnough's Fairy Fly
I managed to get these two images using stacking and stitching techniques. About 200 individual images went into each final image.
These are low resolution shots (1024pixel longest dimension).. Photography was tricky as the fly has significant depth which meant deep stacks were necessary over the body. The coverslip didn't react well with differential interference contrast, giving problems with evenness of illumination and an overall reddish cast to the DIC darkfield fully crossed polars version which was difficult to eliminate in Photoshop. I would like to have a go with conventional darkfield, but need to do that on a different microscope
For thes images I used a X10 Plan DIC objective and long working distance DIC condenser on a Nikon Diaphot microscope. Total magnification X25 at the camera sensor.
Click on images for larger versions (600 longest dimension)
or below for full size versios (1024 longest dimension)
Slide by Lewis Woolnough
Images by David Linstead ©2011
The Wantage Summer Festival – Club display at the Vale and Downlands Museum
This was a drop-in-family event, encouraging children and their parents to investigate the world around them with a variety of magnifiers and microscopes. The child sized tables were spread with a range of magnifiers, several NHM pocket microscopes and a simple stereo microscope.
A range of samples including lichen, feathers, printed paper, salt crystals, sugar crystals, sand with microfossils and seeds were mounted on plastic slides so they could be safely handled.
A picture is worth a thousand words and the children selected their favourite sample which was photographed with a basic camera held over the eyepiece of the pocket microscope.
These are the favourites:
Chosen by (Left to right) - Fred, Eiffel and Talisker
Chosen by (Left to right) - Sugar and 42
Pam Hamer
Young Scientists’ Day
On Saturday 11 June the Club joined with the Natural History Museum in displays in the Wildlife garden.
Like last year the Club focus was the pond where dipping was carried out throughout the afternoon. After initially examining the material at the pondside with magnifiers and a simple stereo microscope, material was brought into the Darwin Centre where Charles Hussey provided a variety of modern stereo microscopes from the Museum to examine the finds in more detail.
The relatively simple stereo microscopes were well used with the visitors, many of them school ages children, assisted when necessary by Club members – images 1,2. Maurice Moss had Daphnia and Cyclops in his samples and Norman Chapman was demonstrating the delights of pollen.
Image 1 (left) Maurice Moss, Norman Chapman and Dennis Fullwood with a young visitor
and 2 (right) Kit Brownlee at the pondside with an older visitor
The highlight was provided by a high magnification stereo microscope equipped with a camera which allowed us to project large sized images onto a screen – image 3. A hydra (Hydra viridis) performed well all afternoon, capturing food and extending and contracting its body – see image 4.
Image 3 (left) The image projection system
and 4 (right) The projected image of the hydra
At the pondside, a pair of newts captured in one of the first nets provided lots of interest –
Image 5 The Newts
Pam Hamer
Wellcome Image Awards 2011
Spike Walker is the creator of four Award-winning images this year. Click here to see the images. Also click here to see a video of Spike talking about 'Light Microscopy'. There is also a video report on the BBC website - click here.
International Year of Chemistry 2011
Left - Salacin Right - Pottasium Chlorate - both under polarised light
Images Copyright© Graham Matthews
Images of snowflakes
A site with some interesting images of snowflakes taken under the SEM microscope. Click here to view.
2010 Hilda Canter-Lund prize
Shortlisted images for the 2010 Hilda Canter-Lund prize have now been uploaded to the British Phycological Society website. To see these, follow this link
The winner was announced at the BPS Winter Meeting in Cardiff on 7 January - click here for result
The Natural History Museum Microscope
An ideal Christmas present and a very useuful instrument for field studies - visit Choosing and Using for a descriptive article by Pam Hamer.
Microscopists’ meeting at Langton Matravers – 16 October 2010
This meeting is illustrated by the following images. It is a grand place to meet and chat to exchange tips and even samples. There was a splendid range of microscopes on display as can be seen by the array on the benches. These ranged from Kit Brownlee’s beautiful Baker phase contrast system to a Maplin digital microscope exhibited by Allan Greavette. Derek Stevens had collected a sample of water from a pool which had collected in his garden and showed the beasties in this on his Vickers microscope fitted with a camera system so visitors could see the images on screen. Klaus Kemp’s display of some of his diatom arrangements was much admired. Brian Darnton had brought plenty of specimens to intrigue the visitors who dropped in to the village hall. These ranged from samples of foraminifera to a slide of the leaf of the Sea Buckthorn Hippophae Rhamnoides,
These meetings are held around April and October each year and all exhibitors are made very welcome. There is a pub nearby for lunch and the Jurassic coast beckons so make a weekend of it and visit Dorset.
Pam Hamer
Images copyright© Pam Hamer
Click on any image to start slide show
And some personal thoughts from Brian Darnton
Our last meeting in Purbeck was so splendidly attended by exhibitors from the Quekett that there were in fact no empty tables left when everyone was organised, totally outnumbering the local people who came to appreciate them, despite good local advertising.
Derek who organises the meetings always has a good display from his
very nutritious bird bath, which can always be relied on to supply algae that can challenge members.
Fred and his grand-daughter bring two boxes of splendid Victorian masterpieces for our pleaseure on a faily regular basis. Its amazing how much information can be gathered from just browsing the boxes with a hand lens.
I had three themes: one was the usual collection of slides of Forams from Dorset in the form of 60 tests set within a white circle on a jet black background in concentric circles. .
Another was the mathematical appreciation of a fossil foram from local Dorset downland selected as being of average size, and a little calculation of how many might fit into a 15 cubic mm square cube of chalk from Ballard Down. The amazing number was something like the current human population of earth.
The third exhibit was a fresh example of Sea Buckthorn in fruit with a demonstration of the polarising effects of the fine silver leaf scales.
Klaus still amazes us with his unparalled skills in the field of Diatoms.
A personal view of the Annual Exhibtion - Quekex 2010
By Dr Chris Thomas
After the long tunnel from South Kensington tube station, you emerge into the light to see the glory of the Natural History Museum (NHM) - and the queues to the entrance! So we continued along Exhibition Rd to use the Geological Museum Entrance and walked straight in.
The minerals and rocks. The glittering jewels in the displays. The moon rock embedded in its transparent glass pyramid. These set the tone for what struck me at the Quekex; the Annual Exhibition of the Quekett Microscopical Club.
To get there we emerged fom the fossils of the Geological museum into a part of the NHMs bird display. Past the glittering feathers of hummingbirds, and the haughty gaze of the Dodo. We then turned right into the Quekex.
The Quekett horn was sounded. It pre-dates the glorious Victorian NHM, with its Dinosaur hall overlooked by the bearded Darwin. Milling around, bumping into old friends, here was also a chance to peer down microscopes and even take pictures.
Primed by the Geological Museum, I was attracted to the Allende Meteorite sample in Dennis Fullwood's display. The occasional glowing crystal in crossed polars as iridescent as opal.
The apparently grey ash from the Eyjafjallajoekull volcano was a contrasting sample brought by Pam Hamer. Under crossed polars it revealed a scattering of glowing crystals amongst the remaining debris. It all looked so harmless now. Yet its abrasive nature to planes travelling at high speed had grounded flights in Europe at the peak of the volcano's activity. Maurice Moss was showing slimemoulds, of which I have fond memories as a student. We had to keep one alive in a Petri dish. Unfortunately mine died when I overfed it on a cornflake. During their reproductive phase they produce fruiting bodies. Those of Physarum virescens reminded me of the Globular aggregates of mordenite, seen earlier in a basalt cavity.
What was particularly good about Maurice's exhibit was showing his copy of the book by Arthur Lister. It had the stunning illustrations of exactly the same slime mould fruiting bodies. These were drawn by his daughter and co-author, Guilema Lister, at the beginning of the 20th Century.
At the end of the day it was out through the grand front door of the NHM, under the watchful eye of a carved Pterodactyl gazing down from one of the window bays.
Chris Thomas
Click on any image to start slide show
Images copyright© 2010 Dr Chris Thomas
and the images in a Picassa on-line album - click here to visit
Book Review
UNDERSTANDING AND USING THE STEREOMICROSCOPE, by Lewis Woolnough.
A Quekett Microscopical Club publication, 2010.
Full colour photos with black and white line drawings, 88 pages.
ISBN 978-0-9564591-0-7
Mr. Lewis Woolnough’s little monograph on Understanding and using the Stereomicroscope, published in association with the Quekett Microscopical Club, is a welcome and much needed introduction to the subject. As described on the back cover “This book lets you use the stereomicroscope immediately and then goes on to help you get the best out of the instrument at a level appropriate for you.”
Although only 88 pages long, the book contains sufficient information to cover the needs of both the absolute beginner and the more established amateur or professional microscopist. The layout is straightforward, almost like a lesson plan, and each section is colour coded for easy reference. Diagrams are clearly set out and appropriate to the text, as are the full colour illustrations.
What is also helpful is that the factual information follows a logical progression in terms of learning and understanding. For instance, after an initial practical “quickstart” chapter, there follows a more detailed insight into the general principles underlying the basic workings of microscopes including a most useful explanation of the differences between the conventional compound microscope design and the different stereomicroscope systems. This distinction has often been a source of confusion and misunderstanding for many amateur microscopists just starting out in their chosen hobby. In particular, there has continued to be a misapprehension regarding the nature and purpose of stereomicroscopes, largely based on the fact that their magnification systems are essentially low power when compared to higher powered compound scopes and that this difference in magnification powers somehow makes them inferior to the latter!
Finally, there is an important chapter devoted to lighting techniques before returning to a review of best practice in considering the specimen, the particular optical features required to achieve maximum effect for that specimen and the associated lighting requirements. The chapter closes with setting up and adjusting the microscope together with a checklist of points to remember, including care and maintenance.
At this point, a few readers might be disappointed not to have seen included here more detailed references and information related to digital photography and to measurement techniques, but, in fairness, this book is meant as an introduction only and as such more than fulfils that requirement.
As a former teacher, I found the book most engaging, easy to read, and a useful additional resource to my library of reference works. Furthermore, I would certainly recommend this book to anyone, but especially the beginner, wishing to deepen his or her understanding and develop practical skills in the use of the stereomicroscope.
Michael Gibson
Honorary Secretary of the Microscopy Section
Northamptonshire Natural History Society.
See Publications for availability
Royal Society Lecture
Revolutionary insights: the dawn of microscopic investigation
Friday 29 October, 1-2pm
In this talk, the birth of microscopy will be shown to be very different from the traditional view. We shall discover that remarkably clear images were obtained by lenses of diminutive size (often no larger than the head of a pin), as the work of Hooke, Leeuwenhoek and Robert Brown is re-examined.
This lecture will be held at the Royal Society Centre for History of Science, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace London SW1Y 5AG. For full details and a link to our online booking form, please see http://royalsociety.org/revolutionary-insights/ or contact me using the following details.
Emma Davidson
Information and Promotion Officer
Tel +44 (0)20 7451 2679
Fax +44 (0)20 7930 2170
Web royalsociety.org
The Royal Society
6-9 Carlton House Terrace
London SW1Y 5AG
Leslie Franchi has posted a short video clip in the forum (Display and discuss your images) and would like to hear from anyone who can identify the creature. Click here to go directly to the forum.
Microscopists' Weekend, Preston Montford 27- 30 Aug 2010
It was a dreary and rainy day when our party set off from Horsham in the Friday, but by the time we got to Oxford the weather was brightening and despite the impending Bank Holiday Weekend, the traffic was tolerable. We arrived earlier than expected and after booking in and being shown our rooms, headed for the nearest hostelry for lunch.
By the afternoon there were busy microscopists setting up equipment and the hitherto empty room was transformed into our lab, complete with cake bar set up by Barry Elham (scrumptious cake, Barry!). On the Friday evening we were treated to an amusing talk from Barry recounting the exploits of some of the memorable members of the PMS. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction!
Spike Walker gave fascinating talk on photo processing on Saturday evening, and showed a number of his wonderful photomicrographs, which were much admired by all present.
Over the weekend we also got in some excellent walking, pond life sampling and on Sunday a trip to Whixall Moss Nature Reserve, a disused peat digging site, now being returned to peat bog. We endured a couple of sharp squalls, but were rewarded afterwards with sunshine and the chance to collect samples by kind permission of Natural England thanks to an introduction from our Field Studies Council hosts.
Back at the lab, Dennis Fullwood and my daughter, Janejira, were treated to an arachnology tutorial from Jeremy Poole and we now have various spiders pickled in alcohol to admire.
The weekend was an unparalleled opportunity to meet with other microscopists, but was also great fun for non-microscopists' families. Thanks are due to Mike Woof for arranging such an enjoyable event. I understand that next year should be a return to Preston Montford, but can also reveal that a number of other venues are under discussion for the future.
Having experienced both Preston Montford and, last year Malham Tarn House, I can heartily recommend the Field Studies Council Field Centres - the rooms are comfortable, the catering is excellent, with breakfast and dinner provided as well as provisions for packed lunch for day trips. Both the aforementioned centres also boast bar facilities - just right after a thirsty day of microscopy.
I have uploaded a slide show available by clicking this Preston Montford 2010 link. This uses Google Picasa and in addition to slide shows also enables map locations and other data to be shown for the images.
Graham
The 2010 Hilda Canter-Lund Photography Award
The British Phycological Society invites entries for the 2010 Hilda Canter-Lund Photography Award, for a photograph on a phycological theme. The competition was established in memory of Hilda Canter-Lund, whose stunning photographs will be known to many. Her photomicrographs of freshwater combined high technical and aesthetic qualities whilst still capturing the quintessence of the organisms she was studying.
A prize of £150 will be awarded to the photograph that best combines these informative, technical and aesthetic qualities. It can be of a micro- or macroalga, marine or freshwater, taken by any photographic medium and the competition is open to all (not just BPS members). The closing date this year is 31 October.
The 2009 shortlist can be seen on http://www.brphycsoc.org/Hilda_Canter-Lund_Prize.lasso. You can also download a pdf of the competition rules from this site.
To enter, please send a jpeg (maximum size: 1 Mb) to MGKelly@bowburn-consultancy.co.uk, along with your name and contact details. The filename should be your name (e.g. Joe_Bloggs.jpg). No additional information is required at this stage. The original image, which will be requested for all shortlisted entries, must be capable of being viewed and printed at 20 x 30 cm without loss of image quality (see rules for more details). You (or your employer) must own the copyright of the image and be prepared to let the BPS use this image for at least two years as a condition of entry.
Quekett members would be welcome to enter the competition.
New Help File for the Forum can be found viia the Using this site page.
New site listed in "Links" Historical Makers of Microscopes and Microscope Slides - click this link
Open day at Natural History Museum for members of the Museum staff. Click here for full report and photos in Members' area.
Excursion to Warnham Local Nature Reserve and Millpond, Horsham - 14th August 2010.
Report and more images in members' Magazine. Click here
The Quekett at the RMS Microscience Exhibition
held at
ExCel Centre, London. Report and images in Members' Magazine.
Report on the Basingstoke Canal Visit
held on 26 th June - report & pictures now in the Member's Magazine.
Young Persons day at the NHM – 12 June 2010
This meeting was focused on the pond in the wildlife garden which the Club (mainly Eric Hollowday and supporters) has been monitoring for a number of years. A number of museum microscopes and tools were available in the nearby Darwin Centre and these were augmented by Club and member's equipment. The original idea was to base the examination of the samples inside but with fine weather and the opening of the garden to the public, we ended up with two centres.
Collecting from the pond -
Further deails and images in the Member's Magazine.
To help in starting to sample ponds and identifying the life in there are a number of resources available on the Internet. A good place to start is an article on Micscape – www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/pond/index.html . Our member Graham Matthew’s website at www.gpmatthews.nildram.co.uk is also a good place appreciate the beauty of pond life.
If you go to www.opalexplorenature.org there is a link to a water survey project. This has a downloadable pack to help in monitoring a pond including how to pond dip and some identification guides
June 2010
New book - Understanding and using the Stereomicrosocpe by Lewis Woolnough. Now available.
May 2010
New book - A history of photography with the light microscope. Now available.
by Brian Bracegirdle
Click here for details of both books
.
April 2010
Scales of Chrysiridia riphens - by Professor Maurice Moss
The images show scales from different parts of the wing - taken with a Nikon Coolpix 4500, set-up on a Watson System 70, with 10x objective. The wing is illuminated wih a very oblique light source, set up to light the scales in the direction that they lie along the wing.
It is surprising to see how curved the scales are and the light source is particularly strongly reflected from the top of the arch.
The moth is the Chrysiridia riphens Drury and is from Madagascar. It superficially resembles a swallotail butterfly, but really is a moth in the family Uraniidae. It has been referred to as the most beautiful moth in the world and it was once used in the costume jewellery trade in Victorian times. The caterpiller feeds on leaves of Omphalea, which is a poisonous genus of te Euphorbiaceae.
The images show the moth itself, sections of the wings and details of the scales.
(Click on each image to see a larger version)
February 20th
WORKSHOP: Diatoms
Prof. Maurice Moss Maurice gave a fascinating short introduction to the diatoms, showing the structure of both centric and raphid diatoms using SEM as well as demonstrating structural colour in light microscopy samples. He also ran a quiz on identification of more general microscopical subjects (see picture of the quiz exhibits).
More details and several images available in the member's area Magazine.