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sve
ape



Registered: 07/07/10
Posts: 1,348
Last seen: 1 year, 4 months
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Mystery powders in my library book.
#13076805 - 08/20/10 12:57 AM (13 years, 5 months ago) |
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I borrowed a copy of Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms from the library and on one of the pages there are two little patches. One is brown and one is blackish. The pages are otherwise really clean. I looked at the patches with a lighted magnifier and it's an extremely fine powder. It reminds me of the spore print I took of a Pluteus except darker.
Leaving mystery spores in a library mushroom book sounds like fun and I'm wondering if that's what this is.
I don't have a microscope but could probably use one at my school. I don't know a damn thing about microscopy aside from that involves microscopes. Where do I start?
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elprawn
Mushroom Guestimator



Registered: 10/17/09
Posts: 14,303
Loc: Ilford, England
Last seen: 2 years, 1 month
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Re: Mystery powders in my library book. [Re: sve]
#13076845 - 08/20/10 01:10 AM (13 years, 5 months ago) |
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Interesting. I wonder if it'll be possible to get the (potential) spores onto the microscope slide without damaging the book.
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sve
ape



Registered: 07/07/10
Posts: 1,348
Last seen: 1 year, 4 months
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Re: Mystery powders in my library book. [Re: elprawn]
#13076861 - 08/20/10 01:18 AM (13 years, 5 months ago) |
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I think I could do that pretty easily with a needle tip and some water in a syringe.
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elprawn
Mushroom Guestimator



Registered: 10/17/09
Posts: 14,303
Loc: Ilford, England
Last seen: 2 years, 1 month
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Re: Mystery powders in my library book. [Re: sve]
#13076865 - 08/20/10 01:21 AM (13 years, 5 months ago) |
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Yeah? That'd be pretty sweet. You seem a cool guy LADY but I don't think I've rated you yet. 5/5!
Edited by elprawn (08/20/10 01:38 AM)
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sve
ape



Registered: 07/07/10
Posts: 1,348
Last seen: 1 year, 4 months
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Re: Mystery powders in my library book. [Re: elprawn]
#13076899 - 08/20/10 01:36 AM (13 years, 5 months ago) |
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Haha, thanks! (Girl though. ) When I get microscope slides would you like some of the mystery powder? I'm not really sure what I'd be looking for. I've seen microscopy photos and they all look so different that I don't know how I'd be able to tell the difference between a mushroom spore and ...erm... everything else that is also small.
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elprawn
Mushroom Guestimator



Registered: 10/17/09
Posts: 14,303
Loc: Ilford, England
Last seen: 2 years, 1 month
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Re: Mystery powders in my library book. [Re: sve]
#13076905 - 08/20/10 01:38 AM (13 years, 5 months ago) |
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My humblest apologies, maam.
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elprawn
Mushroom Guestimator



Registered: 10/17/09
Posts: 14,303
Loc: Ilford, England
Last seen: 2 years, 1 month
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Re: Mystery powders in my library book. [Re: elprawn]
#13076907 - 08/20/10 01:39 AM (13 years, 5 months ago) |
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On the spore front, sure you can show me, but I wouldn't have the foggiest what it was that I was looking at!
Edited by elprawn (08/20/10 02:54 AM)
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sve
ape



Registered: 07/07/10
Posts: 1,348
Last seen: 1 year, 4 months
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Re: Mystery powders in my library book. [Re: elprawn]
#13076911 - 08/20/10 01:44 AM (13 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quite alright. Any suggestions on a book (or website, whatever) to start learning about this? My library is able to get books from other libraries pretty easily so a book would be great. And it might even come with more mystery powder!
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sve
ape



Registered: 07/07/10
Posts: 1,348
Last seen: 1 year, 4 months
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Re: Mystery powders in my library book. [Re: sve]
#13076916 - 08/20/10 01:46 AM (13 years, 5 months ago) |
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Ah, okay! I'll try to remember to PM you when I find slides so you can also have some random brown powder on a slide!
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TimmiT


Registered: 03/23/10
Posts: 5,303
Loc: Victoria
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Re: Mystery powders in my library book. [Re: sve]
#13076918 - 08/20/10 01:51 AM (13 years, 5 months ago) |
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If you manage to get some under the scope just take a photo (camera down the barrel) and post it here. Either that or give a good description of their characteristics. Someone might be able to tell you something about them.
-------------------- "Reality leaves a lot to the imagination" ~ John Lennon
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sve
ape



Registered: 07/07/10
Posts: 1,348
Last seen: 1 year, 4 months
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Re: Mystery powders in my library book. [Re: TimmiT]
#13078155 - 08/20/10 11:19 AM (13 years, 5 months ago) |
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Okay.
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mellowparty
legitimate researcher


Registered: 05/17/09
Posts: 18,467
Last seen: 10 years, 2 months
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Re: Mystery powders in my library book. [Re: sve]
#13159066 - 09/07/10 10:59 AM (13 years, 4 months ago) |
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Transfer the suspension on the slide and cover with a cover slip. If your school has microscopes its gotta have some of those.
Start with the objective or lowest power and once u put it on focus proceed to the next magnification level.
Once you get to the objective marked 40x you should see something like that:

Can you say what these are?
Here are a couple of hints:
1. Look if they have a widefield eye-piece. It has a massive front lense and usually a picture of spectacles on it. Then just point the camera along the optical axis and tinker it a bit. Once you are confident with the quality of the image shot dem mystery balls 
2. Resolution is inversely proportional to the wavelenght. So I suggest you put a bluish filter somewhere along the condensor.
I really wanna see what you got 
Good luck
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