Over the years, I have posted many photos of Big Things. Sizes range from the Moon to Jupiter and the Sun, to distant nebulae and multi-lightyear-wide starscapes.
In contrast, during my recent trip to Haiti David and I explored and photographed Small Things through his microscope. Technically called a "photomicrograph," the picture above shows a 0.02 inch creature called a Rotifer Philodina inside a drop of pond water.
It's interesting enough to see the creature frozen in time. But it gets quite fascinating when you can see how it moves. David and I shot the following HD video with my Canon T4i attached to his microscope's new camera adapter. The movement is shown at half speed, making it possible to see the graceful twisting motion as the tiny creature "flies" through the water collecting nutrients with its twin rotary cilia. (I haven't yet found another YouTube video that follows the twisting roll action in flight.) When it stops, the rotifer often anchors itself with spike-like feet. At the 2:39 mark, the view switches to a higher magnification. Toward the end of the video, a momentary blank view shows a myriad of other tiny water creatures inhabiting the rotifer's home water drop. For the best, most frightening view of these pond water inhabitants, click on the "Full Screen" icon in the lower-right of the YouTube video window. :-)
Yes, I realize that there are much better photos and videos of microscopic creatures available on the internet, shot through multi-thousand-dollar microscopes. But I have to say, I'm happy with what David and I were able to do rather casually using a student-grade microscope and a medium-grade DSLR.
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