I tried observing the eggs of the pond snail (Lymnaea stagnalis) using darkfield reflected light illumination. Typically, a metallurgical microscope with reflected light isn’t suited for observing transparent specimens in water. However, I chose to use it this time because pond snail eggs are encased in a jelly-like matrix, making it impossible to place a coverslip over them.
There’s a reason why the resulting darkfield image doesn’t look like a typical one. The eggs were placed on the platter of a hard disk drive, and the light reflected from the platter acts somewhat like transmitted light, altering the appearance. Additionally, the overall contrast is low because the reflected light from the illuminator bounces off the water surface, further reducing image clarity.
This post is meant to show what happens when you use reflected light to observe water-based specimens with a metallurgical microscope. If you ever try this and wonder, “Is my microscope broken? Are the lenses dirty?”, you’ll know this is just how it looks.
Still, I was surprised at how adorable the baby pond snails are. I didn’t expect them to be this cute. I’m now considering building a deeper water chamber, which might allow for proper darkfield observation using transmitted light. I’ll give it a try!
Objective lens: Olympus Neo SPlan 10 NIC
Relay lens: Olympus NFK 2.5x
0.7x Speed Booster
Camera: Sony α6300
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