Question regarding picture - (Apr/17/2019 )

Hello all,

anyone an idea what the best option would be to make pictures like shown in the attachment?

It says 2x magnification and it seems the cells are just grown on agar plates... but can't seem to figure out how to take a picture like this.

Would this picture be taken with a simple stereo microscope and with a camera a picture taken through the lens?

But it seems weird to keep the cells just on agar plates and then take a picture like this with just a 2x magnification.

thanks in advance.

I would say stereo microscope with camera attachment. I think you would need a dark-field or possibly DIC (how this would work with agar is another question...) set-up to get this to work clearly, but it may be that just plain transmitted light would work. 

I suspect that they grew the colonies on thin agar layers on slides or something similar to help the light transmission through the agar.

bob1 on Wed Apr 17 19:32:34 2019 said:

I would say stereo microscope with camera attachment. I think you would need a dark-field or possibly DIC (how this would work with agar is another question...) set-up to get this to work clearly, but it may be that just plain transmitted light would work. 

 

I suspect that they grew the colonies on thin agar layers on slides or something similar to help the light transmission through the agar.

Yeah,was thinking something similar.

Very annoying they never mention the details on how they made the pictures. 

I agree a pub ought to have some details in Methods if it is not obvious. If this is from a recent pub try contacting the corresponding author and make a polite inquiry into how they did it. I assume there isn't any on-line supplemental material with more details.

OldCloner on Fri Apr 26 14:55:48 2019 said:

I agree a pub ought to have some details in Methods if it is not obvious. If this is from a recent pub try contacting the corresponding author and make a polite inquiry into how they did it. I assume there isn't any on-line supplemental material with more details.

I have seen this pictures several times (both old or new papers) and it is never stated how they are made.

Not just with this type of pictures, but with others as well, it is often a mystery of they were made.