Moss, moss, moss...

[archaeopteryx]

Epiphytic 168 stack around 1.3x. I think Plagiothecium laetum but don't have the confidence level to call an identification. Partly because this individual is incompletely rehydrated, which complicates inspection of leaf margins.

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[archaeopteryx]

A sidewalk crack moss at 7.1x with the UPlanFL that's been amusing people lately. If one wishes to think of this as a form of high resolution photography along the image axis, it's a 1.01 GB data capture yielding 2376 frames in 15 substacks (stacked with Picolay, aligned by Hugin, post in GIMP, working size on disk is 2.03 GB). Subject size of the image is 2.44 x 1.83 mm, so the "big" stem on the right is about a millimetre in diameter.

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100% crop of the leaf cells for @Joris.

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[Bushboy]

I was stunned slightly when I saw the microscope objective attached to your lens. Very clever, and I’m sure people thought it was make believe. How is it attached? Is it real?

 

[archaeopteryx]

How is it attached?

It's attached with a 46 mm to RMS thread (0.800"-36, so named because Royal Microscopical Society boffins made it a microscope objective standard in 1858) step down ring from Joy's Optics. Most objectives use RMS so stepping rings are easy to source, though 46 mm anything tends to be trickier than 52+ mm.

Is it real?

I've not heard of anyone faking microscope objectives, though presumably it's been done. If my copy's a fake whoever did it also copied its near apochromaticity and ability to resolve submicron structures, so I think I don't care. At my nominal upper limit of 9.4x the subject size of pixels in 4k videos from post focus on Panasonic's 16 MP sensors is 500 nm. At 7.1x it's 633 nm, though both are below the objective's 520 nm lateral Abbe resolution of 867 nm. Not much on that scale here, though. Counting pixels and estimating angles suggests the leaf cells above are around 7 um thick. The smaller grit particles from the sidewalk are around 15 um.

I linked the Olympus product page for the UPLFN objectives in the other thread but here it is again. Used 10x UPlanFLs are commonly available on eBay at reasonable prices, though sellers seldom specifically indicate UPLFN10X2. There are various competitive 10x infinity metallurgic objectives, the other one currently in production by Olympus being the 10x LMPlanFL (LMPLNFL).

This is the initial subslab of what was going to be a 9.4x stack of an epiphytic moss, Metaneckera menziesii. Got too "windy" to continue with the others since it doesn't take much air pressure to shift a tripod a few tens of microns.

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[Joris]

100% crop of the leaf cells for @Joris.
View attachment 780233

Thank you, great work !

 

[jimr.pdx]

Irish tribbles, fresh off our roof. GX7 and ZD 35/3.5 macro.

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[Harvey Melvin Richards]

Pretending to be moss, see post below.

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EM127084-1 by Harvey Richards, on Flickr

 

[archaeopteryx]

Hi Harvey, are you sure that's moss rather than a moss gall from Diplolepis rosae or a similar wasp? Looking at full resolution on flickr I'm not seeing structures which look like the desiccated, spirally arranged leaves which would be expected of a moss colony. (Also, the mosses I know all dessicate to yellow-green, dark brown, or black rather than light brown.)

For comparison, here's a quick (handheld, not focus stacked, and low-ish magnification) snap of a couple of the branch colonies across the street from work.

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Irish tribbles, fresh off our roof.

Not sure these are moss colonies either. Would need more pixels to tell if they're something else or just really pushing setae.

 

[Harvey Melvin Richards]

Hi Harvey, are you sure that's moss rather than a moss gall from Diplolepis rosae or a similar wasp? Looking at full resolution on flickr I'm not seeing structures which look like the desiccated, spirally arranged leaves which would be expected of a moss colony. (Also, the mosses I know all dessicate to yellow-green, dark brown, or black rather than light brown.)

For comparison, here's a quick (handheld, not focus stacked, and low-ish magnification) snap of a couple of the branch colonies across the street from work.
View attachment 788924

Not sure these are moss colonies either. Would need more pixels to tell if they're something else or just really pushing setae.

You are correct, the growth is on a rose hip.