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MODERN MICROSCOPY JOURNAL
"How To" Tutorial Series : How to Make and Use a Simple Microspectroscopic Eyepiece
by John Gustav Delly, Scientific Advisor
Monday, July 07, 2003
All images appear at the end of the article.
INTRODUCTION
Here's
a fascinating and highly useful accessory for your microscope, which you
can make for less than one U.S. dollar. The simple microspectroscopic
eyepiece described is suitable for most qualitative work, and even some
semi-quantitative analyses. Let me first tell you how to make your own
microspectroscopic eyepiece, and then I'll tell you how to use it and
experiment with it. I first wrote about this device in 1966 (1), when
inexpensive, acetate plastic diffraction grating replicas having about
13,400 lines per inch first became commonly available. Since that time,
holographic diffraction grating replicas have become available at very
reasonable cost, allowing for improvements in performance, with no increase
in cost.
First of all, you will need an eyepiece with a focusing eyelens - the
kind that you probably already have for your eyepiece micrometer. It can
be an older model with focusing accomplished by sliding the telescopic
tubing up and down, or it can be a more modern eyepiece with helical focusing
of the eyelens. Remove the graticule from the eyepiece in preparation
for the modification. The microspectroscopic eyepiece consists only of
a slit, and a piece of diffraction grating replica film. Refer to Figure
1, a cross section of an eyepiece with focusing eyelens, for placement
of the parts.
ASSEMBLING
THE SIMPLE MICROSPECTROSCOPIC EYEPIECE
The
Slit: The slit is made from a double-edge razor blade, and a piece of
cardboard or a washer. Cut a round piece of thin cardboard so that it
will lie on the eyepiece diaphragm, or on the eyepiece graticule mounting
shelf. A U.S. 5¢ piece or an English sixpence coin makes a perfect
template of correct size for diaphragms of older eyepieces. Cut a rectangular
opening in the disc - see Figure 1. There is nothing critical about
the dimensions of the cut-out, for it only acts to support the razor blade
pieces.
Next,
snap a double-edge razor in two, using a couple of hemostats or long-nosed
pliers - and don't forget to wear eye protection; a tin snips works even
better. Then, snap one of the long halves in two, put the two cutting
edges face-to-face to form a narrow slit - say, about 0.2 mm to begin
with, and tape or glue them to the cardboard (I used double-sided sticky
tape). See "D" in Figure 1 for placement of the razor blades
on cardboard disc, "C." You might want to make a couple of these
slit assemblies, with different slit widths. The narrower the slit, the
greater will be the spectral line resolution, but the less light there
will be, necessitating a higher wattage lamp.
Place the slit blade-side-down on the diaphragm of the eyepiece. You can
paint everything flat black, if you want to, but if you use "blued"
blades, this will not be necessary. I have been having trouble finding
blued blades recently, so, for my most recent version, I used the more
commonly available stainless steel blades. I used a pair of tin snips
to cut them to size, and trim them.
Figure 2 shows all of the parts that you will need
to convert any eyepiece with a focusing eyelens, including washers, razor
blade, flat-black paint, and gun blue; a completed razor blade slit mounted
on a blackened washer is also shown in place on the graticule mounting
shelf of an Olympus eyepiece. For the Olympus BX-51 polarizing microscope
I am currently using, a WHI0X-H/22 high-eyepoint eyepiece was converted.
The graticule size for this eyepiece is 24 mm. I looked in my baby food
jar of miscellaneous washers for one of that size and the closest I found
was 1-inch diameter. I turned this down to 24 mm in my miniature lathe.
Incidentally, a U.S. quarter (25¢ piece) is just over 24 mm (24.12
mm-24.25 mm), so it makes a good template for a cardboard disc.
Figure 3 shows a couple of older eyepieces with focusing eyelenses,
together with the new Olympus WH10X eyepiece. The eyepiece at the far
left has been reassembled; in the middle, the focusing eyelens has been
removed to gain access to the diaphragm; at the far right is the Olympus
WH10X-H/22 eyepiece with a piece of holographic diffraction grating replica
sitting on top of the eyelens, and in front of it, the slit is shown before
being screwed back in the base of the eyepiece.
It
is not necessary to darken the washer and blades, but blackening them
does cut down on internal glare. You will have to expose fresh, clean
steel for the gun blue to "take." The gun blue I prefer consists
of selenious acid, hydrochloric acid, and copper sulfate. I also use Kodak
Dull Black Brushing Lacquer, but any flat black paint will do.
Diffraction
Grating: Inexpensive transmission diffraction grating replicas are what
makes all this possible; there are two kinds, ruled and holographic.
Ruled
diffraction gratings are produced by ruling a closely-spaced series of
straight, parallel grooves into an optically-flat, aluminum-coated substrate,
using an interferometrically-controlled ruling engine to guide a diamond
cutting tool. The diamond tool forms a sawtooth-shaped groove profile
at a specific angle known as the "blaze" angle. The finished,
ruled grating is known as the "master" grating. Replicas are
made from the master by vacuum deposition coating the master with a separation
layer, and then aluminum coating the top of the separation layer. For
commercial gratings, an epoxy-coated flat-glass substrate is placed on
top of the layer-covered master, thus duplicating the grooved surface.
The combination is cured, and the replica is separated from the master.
Such commercial diffraction grating replicas range in cost from about
$65 to $200, depending on size and number of grooves per millimeter. Fortunately,
very inexpensive non-commercial grade diffraction grating film is available.
Forty years ago, I used a film that had 13,400 lines per inch. I bought
it from American Science Center in Chicago; a 2" X 2" piece
cost 25¢, and a sheet 8½" X 11" cost $1.50. This
is no longer available. However, Edmund Scientific's Scientifics®
(www.scientificsonline.com) sell a diffraction grating film with 1,000
lines per millimeter; two sheets 12" X 6", catalog #E30402-67,
cost only $7.95. They also sell 2" X 2" cardboard-slide-mounted
diffraction grating film with 13,400 grooves per inch, catalog #E30073-07;
a package of 15 costs $7.95.
Holographic
gratings are formed from laser-produced masters. Two laser beams form
an interference fringe field, whose standing wave pattern is exposed to
a photo-resist coated polished substrate. The resulting pattern of straight
lines has a sinusoidal cross section. Replicas are made in a manner similar
to that for ruled gratings. Holographic diffraction gratings have a decreased
amount of stray light, and, therefore, produce sharper diffraction orders
than ruled gratings, which, in turn, increase the ability to view spectral
absorption and emission lines by placing most of the light in the first-order
image. Commercial-grade, holographically-produced gratings range from
$75 to $300, depending on the size and number of grooves per millimeter.
Again, inexpensive, non-commercial grades are available. Scientifics®
sell a holographic diffraction grating film made from 0.002" thick,
clear polyacetate film with 12,700 grooves per inch. A set of two sheets
12" X 6", catalog #E30545-09, costs $7.95 - same cost as the
ruled film. Or, a package of 15 cardboard-slide-mounted gratings, catalog
#E30545-10, costs $9.95.
Another source for holographic diffraction grating replica film is Learning
Technologies, Inc. (Project STAR), 1-800-537-8703. Their film has 19,050
lines per inch (750 lines per millimeter), with a dispersion angle of
23.5°. The replica is made of polyester plastic, and they claim their
material is 100 times more efficient than acetate gratings. Two 5"
X 5" sheets, catalog #PS-08-A, cost $9.00. It is also available as
a 6' X 5" roll, 4.5" X 5" sheet, and even as a single 35
mm glass slide./p>
Contact
McCrone Microscopes & Accessories
about these diffraction gratings.
Cut
a circular or square piece of diffraction grating replica film, "A"
in Figure 1, and insert it directly beneath the eyelens, supporting it
there with a wire retainer, or "O" ring, or cork ring; or, you
can fix it to a cover glass, being careful not to cement the ruled side
of the grating. For the newer Olympus eyepiece, I cut a ½"
X ½" diffraction grating film and placed it right on top of
the eyelens (Figure 3); this is faster, and it works just fine. How do
you know which way the rules/grooves are running on your film? Look at
the film with your microscope, using at least a 40X objective. Compare
the ruled diffraction grating to the holographic grating; and, equally
interesting, compare the holographic gratings from Scientifics® and
from Learning Technologies. Eventually, you will want the rulings to be
correctly oriented with respect to the slit - rulings parallel to the
slit.
SET-UP
OF THE SIMPLE MICROSPECTROSCOPIC EYEPIECE
The
simple microspectroscopic eyepiece is now completed. Insert the modified
eyepiece into the microscope, turn on the light, and adjust the eyelens
until the slit is in sharp focus for you. It will be easier now if you
replace the other, unmodified eyepiece with a dust plug. Now look to the
far left and far right of the slit; the continuous spectrum of the light
source will be seen on either side of the slit. Look still farther, left
and right, beyond these first-order spectra, and you will see another
set of spectra, more expanded (dispersed), but less bright beyond the
brighter spectra; these are the second-order spectra. The slit may be
positioned to one side of center, so that the spectrum will be centered.
Try both ways. Also, one of the spectra may be sharper than the other
one. Rotate the diffraction grating film that is sitting on top of your
eyelens, and notice that, if the rulings/grooves are perpendicular to
the slit, you will see images of the slit above and below the actual slit,
but only when the film is rotated so that the rulings/grooves are parallel
to the slit will you obtain nice spectra to the left and right of the
slit. If there is dirt in the slit, or any dust particles adhering to the razor
blade edges, thin black horizontal lines will be seen running across the
spectrum.
Tilt your mirror, if you have one, toward a fluorescent
light, and the mercury spectrum will be seen superimposed on the entire
visible spectrum. You will see stronger lines in the yellow, green, and
blue. See if you can resolve the two yellow lines at 577 nm and 579 nm.
The green line will be at 546 nm, and the blue line lies at 436 nm. Without
a scale in the field-of-view, only qualitative work can be done, but this
is sufficient for most purposes. The microspectroscope made by Zeiss about
70 years ago, like the original Sorby-Browning, utilizes a direct vision
prism, and has not only an illuminated, adjustable scale, but a right-angle
prism and side port for introducing a reference spectrum that can be seen
simultaneously with the spectrum of the substance under investigation.
You can read about the Zeiss Microspectroscope in Needham's The Practical
Use of the Microscope (2). Figure 4 is a woodcut of the original Sorby-Browning
Microspectroscope of the 1860s and Figure 5 is a woodcut of the cross
section of this device.
All right, now we have a caution for all of you who are trying this with
a polarizing microscope. If you leave your polarizer in, you will get
all kinds of strange anomalies when you look at a spectrum of your light
source (note what happens to the appearance of your spectrum as you rotate
the polarizer). So, you need to remove the polarizer. This will be easy
with many microscopes; however, the polarizer is not removable from the
condenser of the Olympus microscope. At this point, you can modify the
Olympus pol condenser so that the polarizer is removable (see my article,
reference 3, on the simple steps to do this), or you can change the condenser
to a non-pol - I changed to an achromatic aplanatic 1.4 NA non-pol condenser.
If your microscope does not have a mirror, but only
a fixed light-exit port, it is worth making an attachable mirror by cutting
a metal disc to the size of your light-exit port, and drilling a hole
in the middle to take the adjustable mirror in its fork mount from any
commonly available microscope that does not have built-in illumination.
The attachable accessory mirror made by Zeiss, shown in Figure 6, will
serve as a model.
One other point, before we leave the set-up of the microspectroscopic
eyepiece, and get into its application: after you have gotten the slit
in focus, and have the rulings/grooves running parallel to the slit, as
evidenced by the observable spectra to the left and right of the slit,
darken the room, remove any filters, neutral densities, etc. from the
light path, direct all of the light to come out of the inclined tubes
by proper prism selection, put an eyetube plug in the place of the unmodified
eyepiece if you haven't already done so, and hold a thin 3" X 5"
piece of white paper a couple of inches above the microspectroscopic eyepiece.
You will see projected on this paper screen an image of the slit, and
both sets of first-order and second-order spectra. This is convenient
for demonstration and group discussion.
WHAT TO LOOK AT
Now
that you have a completed and tested microspectroscopic eyepiece, what
do you look at? The answer is, anything that is colored, and even some
colorless or nearly colorless substances with strong absorption in select
regions of the spectrum. You can look at colored lights, or solids, or
liquids. Seeing the mercury lines from a fluorescent lamp superimposed
on a complete spectrum suggests that you could view the light from sodium
vapor lamps, or cadmium or neon; or street lights of various kinds and
colors. These are emission spectra.
Emission
spectra can be produced by spark vaporizing the material under test, and
looking at the light thus produced. Flame tests are a common form of flame
emission, in which a platinum wire is dipped into a solution or salt of,
say, sodium, or potassium, or strontium, or copper, or calcium, and then
placed in a Bunsen or alcohol lamp flame. The flame will be colored. Mixtures
of such salts are sold for placing on logs in a fireplace to achieve novel,
colored flame effects. If these colored flames are viewed in a spectroscope
- or with your microspectroscopic eyepiece - the background will be black,
but a series of colored lines will be seen that are characteristic of
the metal element. The exact wavelengths of these colored lines have been
well documented over time, and form the basis of emission spectroscopic
analysis. The characteristic lines of each element, and their intensities,
may be found in any edition of The Handbook of Chemistry and Physics,
or in the several editions of the classic textbooks on spectrum analysis,
such as those by Roscoe (4), Lockyer (5), or Schellen (6). The more complete
M.I.T. Tables of Wavelengths are not needed for our purposes.
An
absorption spectrum occurs when light passes through a cold, dilute gas
and atoms in the gas absorb at characteristic frequencies, or when any
colored substance is introduced between the light source and the spectroscope.
Absorption spectra are characterized by a continuous spectrum displaying
periodic, vertical black lines or bands of varying intensity and width.
Interposing colored filters or substances between the light source and
the microspectroscopic eyepiece will result in absorption spectra.
Figure 7 illustrates the solar spectrum with its
absorption lines, and the emission spectra of the metals of the alkalis
and alkaline earths. This color plate is the frontispiece of Roscoe's
book (4) on spectrum analysis. Figure 8 is another chromolithographic
plate from his book, showing the spectra of some of the stars and nebulae.
Roscoe was an English chemist who, after his undergraduate work, trained
with Bunsen at Heidleberg for his Ph.D. in 1855. He translated Bunsen
and Kirchhoff's classic, Chemische Analyse durch Spectralbeobachtungen
(1860), and Kirchhoff's Untersuchungen über das Sonnenspectrum (1861-63),
and includes a number of their tables and spectra in his own book.
Figure 9 is a chromolithograph from Lockyer's book (5), illustrating both
absorption and emission (radiation) spectra. Spectrum 1 is the continuous
spectrum, for reference. Spectra 2 through 8 are emission spectra: 2 is
of sodium - note the doublet around 589 nm; 3 is of magnesium; 4 is from
a salt of strontium; 5 and 6 are both of hydrogen, but at different pressures;
7 and 8, respectively, are from a nebula and the sun's chromosphere. Spectra
9 and 10 are absorption spectra: 9 represents the absorption in the solar
spectrum, and 10 represents the absorption of sodium vapor in the laboratory.
Compare spectra 9 (emission) and 10 (absorption); both sodium. Lockyer
began his career as an amateur astronomer in 1859 with Bunsen and Kirchhoff's
discoveries. He attached a spectroscope to his 6 ¼" refracting
telescope, and began observations that led to his appointment in 1875
as director of the Solar Physics Observatory at South Kensington. Interestingly,
Lockyer was the founder of Nature, the scientific journal, which began
in 1869, and which Lockyer edited for the first 50 years of its existence.
FILTERS - THESE ARE FUN!
Figure 10 shows some of the filters that I used,
including three greens - a Wratten No. 58, a GIF green interference filter,
and a precision 546 nm interference filter; two oranges - a Roscolux No.
23 orange, and a precision 589 nm interference filter; a Wratten #35 (D)
purple filter, and a combination of five Roscolux filters; the tricolor
filters, Wratten #47, #61, and #29; and two examples of didymium glass,
one a proper filter, and the other a scrap from the making of a wavelength
standard.
Start, say, by putting a precision line Sodium D interference filter over
your light-exit port (use a 10X-20X objective; condenser aperture diaphragm
open). Look out to the left or right of the slit, and you will see an
orange vertical line at 589 nm, with a width of about 10 nm. Now, substitute
for the interference filter, a Rosco Roscolux #23 orange filter, and notice
how much wider the bandpass is. This affords a dramatic demonstration
as to why professional microscopists should use the more expensive precision
line interference filters for refractive index determination, and why
the much less expensive orange theatrical gel is more suited to student
use in classrooms where economical large numbers of filters are required.
Another
very informative experiment consists of comparing a Nilkon GIF green interference
filter, and an Olympus 546 nm interference filter. The Olympus is very
narrow in band width, and is ideal for Senarmont compensation; whereas,
the other is much broader and more suited for use in phase contrast microscopy.
Didymium
filters were very popular when used to make color film photomicrographs
of H and E stained biomedical tissues. Today, the same didymium filters
are still used to enhance the reds in H and E stained tissues, but now
for digital imaging. Didymium is made up chiefly from a mixture of the
rare earth oxides of neodymium and praseodymium, and has very strong and
distinctive absorption bands. Place one of these filters anywhere in the
light path, and note the very distinct dark absorption bands, the strongest
being in the yellow where sodium lies. Glassblowers use eyeglasses made
from didymium glass to filter out the yellow-colored flame due to sodium,
so that they can watch the flow of the molten glass.
Didymium filters are made by Schott, and Corning, amongst others. At one
time, didymium glass was sold by Nelson Gemmological Instruments (1 Lynhurst
Road, Hampstead, London NW3 5PX, U.K. phone 020 7267 7199) as McCrone
Wavelength Standard M-27.
Place various photographic filters in the light path, and notice the regions
in which they absorb. More specifically, place Wratten filters #47 blue,
#61 green, and #29 red in the light path, and notice how each one covers
a different third of the spectrum. These three filters, known as the tricolor
filters, are used in color separation work. Another combination is Wratten
filters #47B, #58, and #25.
Peter Evennett has written a wonderful article (7) on adapting a consumer
digital camera for photomicrography, in which he discusses and illustrates
avoidance of chromatic difference of magnification. His illustrations
involve the use of a purple filter to demonstrate blue and red images
on either side of stage micrometer graduations in mis-matched objective/optical
camera coupler systems. The filter he uses is a now- discontinued Wratten
#35 (D) filter, formerly sold as part of a Kodak Photomicrography Filter
Set.
I
tried to duplicate the effects of this discontinued filter by combining
Roscoe Roscolux filters. I noted the complete absence of the yellow/orange/green
region in the #35 filter; only moderately wide red and blue bands. I started
combining various Roscoe filters until I obtained a similar appearance
in the resulting spectrum; maybe somewhat better than the #35. The combination
of the following Roscoe filters is equivalent to the #35(D): #49 Medium
Purple; #52 Light Lavender; #56 Gypsy Lavender; #349 Fisher Fuchsia; and
either #355 Pale Violet, or #357 Royal Lavender.
Incidentally, by covering only the lower half of your light-exit port
with your test filter, you will see both the absorption spectrum of the
test filter, and the continuous spectrum for reference.
Solids, and particularly colored minerals, have been extensively studied
with the microspectroscope. There is a 1915 Smithsonian publication by
Wherry (8) that deals exclusively with the microspectroscope in mineralogy.
Edgar T. Wherry, Assistant Curator, Division of Mineralogy and Petrology,
U.S. National Museum, used a Crouch binocular microscope stand, fitted
with a 37 mm focal length objective, and an Abbe-Zeiss "Spectral-Ocular"
in the right-hand tube to make a survey of scores of colored minerals,
including the rare earth minerals, the uranium minerals, and the garnet
group. The results of the examination of about 200 minerals with the microspectroscope
are presented in tabular form; groupings are by color (yellow or brown;
red, pink or orange; blue; green; etc.). The absorption bands are recorded
numerically under the general columns red, orange, yellow, green, blue,
violet.
Colored liquids may also be viewed. These are best looked at by placing
the colored liquid in a watchglass; that way, the effect of thickness
of the liquid layer may be demonstrated. There are characteristic absorption
spectra for a host of substances, including indigo, ammoniacal copper
sulfate, tincture of chlorophyll, potassium dichromate, potassium permanganate,
cobalt cyanide, didymium nitrate, cobalt chloride, and blood. This last
item, blood, is of particular interest to me, because I used my simple
microspectroscopic eyepiece in what turned out to be, at that time, the
longest murder trial in the history of one of our northern states. But
let me tell you this story as part of the background as to why I made
the microspectroscopic eyepiece in the first place.
BACKGROUND AND HISTORY OF THE MICROSPECTROSCOPE
When
I first joined McCrone Associates about 40 years ago, I was delighted
to discover in the library a complete run of both the Journal of the Royal
Microscopical Society, and the Journal of the Quekett Microscopical Club.
I resolved to read both
and I did
it took me eight years! Along
the way, I left little bits of paper in each volume noting special topics.
For me, one of the most fascinating topics was the invention of the microspectroscope
in the 1860s.
Wollaston in 1802 and Fraunhofer in 1814 independently
discovered the fine black lines in the spectrum of sunlight; and Kirchhoff
in 1859 introduced spectrum analysis. The spectroscope as a refined analytical
instrument was first made known by Kirchhoff and Bunsen in 1860. It was
F. Hoppe who first described the absorption bands of human blood in 1862.
Browning and Huggins constructed the first microspectroscope, but Sorby,
the founder of petrography and metallography, almost immediately suggested
improvements in the prism design. The "Sorby-Browning Micro-spectroscopic
Eye-piece" (Figures 4 and 5) was constructed, and used to investigate
many materials. You can read about these early designs of the microspectroscope
in Hogg's The Microscope, Its History, Construction, and Application (9).
From
1865 to 1871, there were a series of articles published by Sorby and Browning
(10) on the applications of the microspectroscope, and the detection of
blood was discussed in all. Several points stuck with me, including the
fact that the absorption spectrum of blood changes with age. Sorby published
the absorption spectra of human blood under different conditions (11,
12, 13). What impressed me most was that by employing a high magnification
objective, the absorption spectrum of human blood was obtained from a
single red blood cell.
Professor Stokes also examined the subject of oxidized
and deoxidized blood, and published a paper on his findings in the Proceedings
of the Royal Society in 1864. Stokes' diagram of the absorption bands
of blood were included in Roscoe's book (4), and is presented here as
Figure 11. Oxidized and deoxidized blood absorption bands are shown in
the first and second spectra; and after converting to haematin by the
action of acid, the absorption spectra change, but show similar differences
for oxidized (third spectrum) and deoxidized (fourth spectrum) states.
Stokes' diagram of the absorption bands of blood are also included in
Schellen's book (6).
The absorption spectrum of blood, as well as other interesting substances,
is also recorded in a woodcut published in The Monthly Microscopical Journal
for November 1871 (14), and is shown here as Figure 12.
I made the simple microspectroscopic eyepiece to play with; I wanted to
see for myself these things that had been described a hundred years earlier.
Just as I had finished assembling the microspectroscopic eyepiece, fortune
favored me by way of an accident to one of my colleagues. Robert Z. Muggli,
staff chemist and Associate at McCrone Associates, cut himself while breaking
glass tubing in the wet lab. Several of us were present, and everyone
ran for first-aid supplies, except me
I ran for microscope slides,
and managed to collect enough blood for my studies before the others returned.
Bob was good-natured about it when he learned that I intended to record
the changes in the absorption spectrum of his blood over time. [Sorby
had no trouble in detecting 50 year old blood.]
Shortly
thereafter, as fate would have it, I was hired by the defense for a case
in which the accused was charged with the kidnap, rape, and murder of
a teen-aged girl in one of our northern states. There was a great deal
of physical evidence in the case, but the relevant sample concerned a
small, reddish-brown deposit taken by the State from the dashboard of
the accused's truck; he is said to have taken the girl into his truck
after first striking the back of the motorscooter she was riding on, knocking
her off. The reddish-brown deposit was thought to be blood. The State
was reluctant to conduct tests for typing because of the small amount
present. The defense attorney said that he needed to know if the reddish-brown
deposit was blood or not; if it was, the accused would have to account
for it; if it was not, precious time could be devoted to the many other
items of physical evidence. The defense attorney asked me if I could tell
if the spot was blood just by looking at it with my microscope. I said
"yes," and the next day, above the protests of the Crime Lab
personnel and warnings that I could not conduct any chemical or other
destructive tests, and with my repeated assurances that I was only going
to look at the material, I was allowed to put the sample
on the stage of my portable microscope. I inserted the microspectroscopic
eyepiece, which, of course, you could not tell from any other eyepiece
from the outside, and tilted my mirror to the overhead laboratory lights,
which were fluorescent. Having now my marker wavelengths from the superimposed
mercury lines, I looked for the absorption bands around 400-450 nm, 535-550
nm, 575-585 nm, 730+ nm, and did not see them. I thanked them, returned
the sample, and left. I told the attorney I did not know what the reddish-brown
deposit was, but it was not blood. The State never introduced the deposit
into evidence.
It was a source of enormous personal satisfaction to have been able to
use my simple microspectroscopic eyepiece, which cost about 25¢ to
make, to help make a decision on such an important question. As a matter
of curiosity, I searched the then-current textbooks of criminalistics,
and never did find this method of blood detection mentioned. I guess it
got lost somewhere over the last 140 years.
The microspectroscopic examination of blood is, however, thoroughly discussed
in at least one book on medical jurisprudence and toxicology; the twelfth
edition of Glaister and Rentoul's Medical Jurisprudence and Toxicology
(15) contains a complete description of the method together with reference
absorption spectra for blood.
Anyway, for a few dollars, and an hour or two of your time, I guarantee
you will learn something about filters and colored solid and liquid specimens
that you didn't know before - and have fun doing it - by constructing
and using your simple microspectroscopic eyepiece.
REFERENCES
(1)
Delly, John Gustav (1966). "A Simple Microspectroscopic Ocular".
The Microscope 15 (4), pp. 143-144.
(2) Needham, George Herbert (1958). The Practical Use of the Microscope.
Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, Illinois. The Microspectroscope is discussed
on pp. 265-267.
(3) Delly, John Gustav (1991). "Conversion of Olympus Polarizing
Condenser to Non-Pol". The Microscope 39, pp. 127-130.
(4) Roscoe, Henry E. (1869). Spectrum Analysis: Six Lectures Delivered
in 1868 Before the Society of Apothecaries of London. Macmillan, London.
(5) Lockyer, J. Norman (1878). Studies in Spectrum Analysis. Kegan
Paul, London.
(6) Schellen, H. (1872). Spectrum Analysis (translated from the
Second Enlarged Revised German edition). Longmans, London.
(7) Evennett, Peter (2000). "The New Photomicrography". Proceedings
of the Royal Microscopical Society 35, pp. 253-256.
(8) Wherry, Edgar T. (1915). "The Microspectroscope in Mineralogy".
Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Volume 65, Number 5, Publication
2362, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
(9) Hogg, Jabez (1898). The Microscope; Its History, Construction,
and Application. George Routledge & Sons Ltd., London.
(10) Browning, John (1865). "On the Application of the Spectroscope
to the Microscope". Transactions of the Microscopical Society
of London. XIII, pp. 107-113.
(11) Sorby, Henry C. (1865). "On the Application of Spectrum - Analysis
to Microscopical Investigations, and Especially to the Detection of Blood-Stains".
The Quarterly Journal of Science. Volume II. pp. 198-215.
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(13) Sorby, Henry C. (1871). "On the Examination of Mixed Colouring
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(14) Bridge, H.G. (1871). "Mapping with the Micro-spectroscope, with
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(15) Glaister, John and Edgar Rentoul (1966). Medical Jurisprudence
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