Mike and I are getting to grips with our microscope before we let Antonia loose with it. She is pushing for a go, but this morning we had problems with a dodgy switch on the light. I was sad because I had managed to prepare an almost decent section of the hyacinth stem using nothing but a craft knife. This evening we got the thing working, and we’re delighted to find we can take reasonable photographs without paying a huge sum for a camera adapter.

When I compared the pictures, I discovered the tripod hardly made any difference over a handheld camera. The focusing is not totally brilliant, but it will do.

There we go… with practice, we might get some nice pictures! Now, I don’t know what that spiral structure in the picture is. I want to believe it is contamination from dust but there are lots of them all over the stem section, and none on other parts of the slide. If anyone wants to enlighten me, please leave a comment.