DoN. Nichols wrote:
On 2008-02-25, technomaNge wrote:

Christopher Tidy wrote:

Mark Rand wrote:

On Sat, 23 Feb 2008 22:56:28 +0000, Christopher Tidy
wrote:




Thanks for those links. I took the reflector frame out of the
microscope today and measured it. Looks like the piece of glass needs
to be 1" in diameter and 1/64" thick, though a thinner piece could
possibly be used.


Just ask yer dentist for one of those disposable inspection mirrors.
Remove the mirror from the plastic housing/handle.
Insert in microscope holder.
Done.


I suspect that it won't work for him. What he needs is a
semi-silvered mirror -- something like 50-75% of the light passes
through, and the rest bounces. It goes between the eyepiece and the
objective lens set up so light from a lamp to the side bounces down and
passes through the objective lens to illuminate the object under study,
and the image which comes back has most of the light going on up to the
eyepiece, with the smaller percentage bounced back to the light, where
it does nothing useful. What would be even better would be an
arrangement where all of the light from the lamp goes through the lens,
and all which bounces back from the object under study goes up to the
eyepiece, but physics is not quite so cooperative.

Thinking about it quickly, I think the efficiency might be better using
a plain sheet of glass and making use of the total internal reflection
effect. What do you think?

Best wishes,

Chris