The photo below is the first photo I took of a microscopic view of scrapings of my small piece of the Murchison meteorite. For this observation I simply scraped the outside of the specimen onto a drop of water on microscope slide and then I placed a cover slip on it. This first sample was done more to perfect the technique than to acquire any specific data about the contents of the meteorite. Below the photos is an illustrated explanation of how I took the photo.

I needed a way to take the photo of the microscopic view of the particles from the Murchison meteorite. The microvideo systems that are available run into the thousands of dollars while the latest computer microscope systems are still in the area of around $800. Not having those expensive items, I simply placed a Color Quickcam on top of the eyepiece of a student microscope and connected it to A MAC Performa Power PC and I had microscope camera for only around $200. Color Quickcams are also available for MS Windows. The two views of the setup below are self-explanatory. Try it, you will be impressed with the results. You can also take short movies with the same system.

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© 1997, James A. Petrait jpetrait@earthling.net