THE NOVEMBER 2005 PURBECK MEETING
Report by Brian Darnton, pictures by Brian Darnton & Tex Swann

The Autumn meeting of the Purbeck Area on October the 29th marked the end of the tenth year of combined meetings in Dorset. This year it was again very well organised by Derek Stevens. During the meeting he ran live micro CCTV of algal material from the Little Sea and his very fruitful bird bath which was suffering from a population explosion of Amoeba after a very rainy but mild period. He also ran a very small and versatile home made illuminator using LED’s.

Setting up...

Above - Derek shows some of the contents of his birdbath. Left - Derek and his wife, Rosemary

Graham Griffin Showed us some fine steel points for Diatom laying which had been eroded by an electro-chemical process and also demonstrated the excellence of his favourite microscope: the Vickers M17.

Dick Speight brought an interesting variety of optical instruments including a laser indicator and a working spectrograph trained on a new fluorescent bulb.

Fred Loxton brought an interesting collection of objective lenses and a delightful set of old Watson slides for viewing.

Tex Swann and Steve Wilmot arrived with an array of old microscopes and apparatus with the intention of trying to more accurately identify and date them. Their display certainly generated a great deal of interest.

Ken Jones demonstrated the superb performance of his Binocular Mantis microscope (shown left) with a variety of still life such as flower heads.
Sam Christofi (right) also used the similar Dynascope from Vision Engineering to show a variety of interesting three dimensional effects on shelly remains and Foraminifera..

Joan Bingley conducted a well illustrated demonstration of moss identification within the genus Polytrichium under the microscope with the aid of the latest book on Mosses and Liverworts in the New Naturalist series. At £40 it looked like a suitable book for a microscopist`s Christmas wish list .

Peter Weldon, had been very busy making filter tray stops of various circles for dark field and other uses by generation on a computer and printing on OHP acetate sheet. Ed - I wonder if a dye-sublimation printer might be better? (Peter's web site is well worth a visit - see our Links section)

Klaus and a customer!

Brian Darnton Demonstrated his latest techniques of Foram sorting and showed a large 3X1 ½” type slides from Swanage Bay and one from the Mediterranean for comparison.

Left - one of Brian's type slides Above - his laptop in action

We were well supported by a good variety of visitors and interested persons, and exhibitors, which included at least 19 QMC members.. Refreshments were forthcoming for the whole day by courtesy of Rosemary Stevens and Margriet Darnton.