moth brain stitch

Every 30 days the site administrators will pick a favorite image made through a microscope from the "Photography Through the Microscope Gallery" to be featured on the front page of the www.amateurmicroscopy.net website.

Moderators: MacroMike, nzmacro, Ken Ramos, twebster, S. Alden

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Steve West
Posts: 545
Joined: Sun Oct 10, 2004 9:23 pm
Location: Tucson, AZ USA

moth brain stitch

Post by Steve West »

Here's an image of the whole moth brain section. I stitched 35 200x frames together to make this (using ImageAssembler). The resulting file is about 30MB. I printed a 3-foot long panorama from the stitch which shows tons of detail (mostly of the air tubes). Unfortunately, by the time I had time to take this picture sequence, most of the stain had bled out of the brain and into the glycerine. Too bad. Again, this is brightfield with a 20x phaco.

Image

The brain is about 4mm across. The two large outer structures are the optic lobes, and we already talked about the antennae lobes. The U-shaped opening at the center is the esophagus! The billions of black fibers are air tubes supplying the oxygen.

Steve

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Frez
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Joined: Sat May 08, 2004 12:33 pm
Location: New Hampshire USA
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Post by Frez »

That's incredible! It sounds like a lot of sewing. :)
Being mostly familiar with mammalian brains, this sure looks odd or primitive. Guess that's why they fly into so many light bulbs. Nice post. A moth brain...that's cool :!:

Frez

Steve West
Posts: 545
Joined: Sun Oct 10, 2004 9:23 pm
Location: Tucson, AZ USA

Post by Steve West »

Hi Frez,

Glad you like the moth brain 8)

The stitching was a pain since there were so many threads of air tubes, the stitcher got all confused. I had to put manual control points in each frame connecting to the adjacent frames. If I recall, the stitcher worked about 2 hours working out the distortions, color blending, etc :evil:

I originally tried a single image with the Nikon 4x plan, but I couldn't produce good illumination over the 4mm area. Besides, the resolution was too low to see anything cool. So a 20x stitch was called for.

Steve

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Frez
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Location: New Hampshire USA
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Post by Frez »

You definately have something to be proud of for the fruits of your labor. Make sure to back up this file.

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twebster
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Location: Phoenix "Valley of the Sun", Arizona, USA

Post by twebster »

Hi ya' Steve :D

Thank you so much for sharing this with us. What a wonderful image and such seamless stitching. That's what makes it our Administrator's Appreciation image for the months of December/January. Great job, Steve :!:

All the best, my friend :D
Tom Webster
Administrator

Phoenix "The Valley of the Sun", Arizona, USA

Think about this...maybe Murphy is an optimist!!!

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Ken Ramos
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Location: Western North Carolina

Post by Ken Ramos »

:D Congrats Steve, that is a great shot and some excellent work. I have never tried "stitching" images 8) .
Site Admin.
Kenneth Ramos
Rutherfordton, North Carolina
Kens Microscopy
Reposts of my images within the galleries are welcome, as are constructive critical critiques.

Steve West
Posts: 545
Joined: Sun Oct 10, 2004 9:23 pm
Location: Tucson, AZ USA

Post by Steve West »

Hi all,

I'm very flattered that one of my pics was picked!

The shirt is wonderful and is of very high quality--thanks for sending it to me Mike!

Steve

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Kenv
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Joined: Mon May 24, 2004 6:51 pm
Location: New Zealand

Post by Kenv »

Well done Steve.
Kenv
Ken

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