[meteorite-list] Digital microscopy on the cheap

[Darren Garrison]

Having not been able to find reviews of USB digital microscopes like this one:

http://www.chinavasion.com/product_info.php/pName/usb-digital-microscope-with-13-m-pixel-resolution-video-clips/

I decided to bite the bullet and buy one and do my own testing.  Mine arrived
today, and I have just started to play with it.  The results are, as expected,
not comparable with what you would get spending several hundred to a few
thousand on a mid- to high end microscope and CCD camera, but they are pretty
good for something costing just 70 bucks.

Here are a couple of samples.  Some or all of them have had some post-processing
work done in an image editing application.  This chondrule is in an NWA 869, and
seems to have had an eventful history.  First it became what I call a "Pac-Man"
chondrule, which might have been caused by collision with another chondrule
while still soft, or might have been caused by a blob of metal accumulatiing in
a drop and then seperating.  Then it became bullseye chondrule.  Then, at some
point after that, it seems to have been distorted or broken again, displacing
the two edges of the bleached rim.

This photo is the best I've managed before, the full resolution of my flatbed
scanner at 1600 dpi:

http://webpages.charter.net/garrison6328/usbmicro/chondrule_flatbed.jpg

This is the USB microscope at the mid-range of it's magnification:

http://webpages.charter.net/garrison6328/usbmicro/chondrule_partmagnification.jpg

And this is the full range of the magnification:

http://webpages.charter.net/garrison6328/usbmicro/chondrule_fullmagnification.jpg

This is just one of many chondrules that I plan on visiting in my slice of NWA
987:

http://webpages.charter.net/garrison6328/usbmicro/chondrule7_tweaked.jpg

More photos to come later.