u/Odd-Marionberry-3389

Back again with yet another blue dye microscopy video - I saw this behavior last night after sandwiching a small amount of concentrated dye solution between two microscope slides. Is this Saffman-Taylor instability?

Also as a side note, I'm so sad I didn't learn about these things sooner but my focus in school was chemistry and, later on, materials science. Better late than never I guess?

Observed some really interesting behavior in this system I looked at under the microscope a couple days ago. In this video, we see different crystal microstructures and coloration that form after dropping kosher salt granules into a droplet of very concentrated blue dye. See yesterday's image post for more!

🔬: Amscope ME580

📸: Pixel 9 pro

Added some kosher salt to a pretty concentrated FD&C blue #1 solution and this was the result. I had such a great time watching it under the microscope last night!

🔬: Amscope ME580, transmitted light with polarizers

📸: Pixel 9 pro

I do chemistry under the microscope sometimes. Some of what I end up making looks really striking.

Here, a process didn't go quite the way I'd hoped but it still looks super cool with both transmitted (first image) and reflected (second image) illumination. Images were taken through the microscope eyepiece.

Tried my hand at some wet chemistry under the microscope earlier this weekend. This is dried material on a glass slide, but it feels almost like an alien landscape!

🔬: Amscope ME580, epi-illumination with crossed polars, 50x magnification

📸: Nikon D7500

I mixed 1uL droplets of dissolved ammonium carbonate, alum, and FD&C blue #1 together under the microscope and let them dry. In areas where they all mixed together, I should end up with blue 1 lake (a synthetic pigment made of alumina, with blue #1 adsorbed on the surface), and in other areas some other reaction products or dried salts. It'll take me a while to sort out the identity of everything seen here, but it's fun to observe the different structures and colors.

At times I took images of the same area in reflected and transmitted mode. Reflected images have dominant red/purple/pink character.

🔬: Amscope ME580, transmitted and epi-illumination, 5-50x LM plan objectives

📸: Nikon D7500

Hi food science friends!

My spouse cooked beef in some butter last night for dinner. As I was getting ready to wash dishes, I noticed the fine particles in the frying pan were organized in a very distinct way, and it piqued my curiosity.

The particle arrangement looks like what I've seen in other systems via the marangoni effect, and I'm interested in seeing if that happened here too. So could you please help explain what went on either during cooking or afterwards to create the pattern in the particles resting in oil?

Thanks!

Tried my hand at making blue 1 lake under the microscope last night, by combining drops of FD&C blue #1, ammonium carbonate, and alum aqueous dispersions. As the mixture dried I was treated to this beautiful display which seems to combine the marangoni effect with anomalous dispersion in the concentrated blue dye, creating a striking pattern on the glass substrate. 😍

I love overanalyzing things in excruciating detail and am curious if there are any other interesting observations you all can make from this video. I'm particularly interested in the colors radiating in different areas as the spot dries - is that just from thin film interference?

Mixed FD&C blue #1, alum, and ammonium carbonate in a water droplet on a glass substrate. Let the reaction proceed and then imaged the resulting structures in transmitted vs reflected light.

Microscope: Amscope ME580, 100x mag, transmitted+ reflected lighting

Camera: Pixel 9 pro through the eyepiece

"I just think they're neat"

- Marge Simpson

Turns out you can make really pretty structures on the acrylic surface with acetone exposure. Thanks to everyone who commented on yesterday's post, I ended up having a lot to think about, which led me to play again under the microscope again last night + acquire these 50x/100x images.

If you're curious and would to see these features as they were created, I shared a video in the microscopy subreddit!

I learned more about what was going on with the acrylic/acetone system and why I saw marangoni instabilities, and wanted to share.

This paper gives great context and shows basically what happened here.

🔬: Amscope ME580, 50-100x magnification, reflected light with crossed polars

📸: Pixel 9 pro, with phone mounted to eyepiece

🎵: Josef Bulva - Sonata #13 in E-flat major

I know I'm crazy for putting acetone on my scope but I needed to see how ESC works! It's something I've learned about and seen evidence of after the fact but why not just induce it and watch?

What I noticed was that any new cracking seemed to occur right after the acetone was applied to the acrylic. I also thought the droplet behavior as the acetone dried was interesting - reminded me of the marangoni effect, though I'm trying to wrap my head around why this would happen in a system with one liquid component and one solid component. In the past, the only way I've observed the marangoni effect was with a purely liquid system. Please feel free to comment if you have any insights or observations!

Edit: Folks described what happened in this system (paper link) re: marangoni. Because the acrylic is very permeable to acetone, changes in the acetone surface concentration drive marangoni instabilities through varied surface tension. So cool!

Image 1: Charmin TP, image 2: Scott TP

Uncoated samples imaged at 5kV on a Hitachi TM3000. 150x magnification.

When dissolved in water, FD&C blue #1 sometimes exhibits "sheening" behavior, where the dye solution appears red instead of blue. I was playing with it and some water on my microscope yesterday.

Amscope ME580, 50x/100x magnification in reflected light mode. Video taken with a pixel pro 9. Music: Eiffel 65: Blue

Hi fluid mechanics friends!

I come seeking insight once again, as I'm a materials scientist exploring solvation phenomena under the microscope with no idea of what I just saw. Here, I had just finished dissolving FD&C blue #1 in water on a glass slide under the microscope. I added a droplet of water nearby (just outside the FOV in the lower right hand corner) and observed the blue solution creating what appeared to be dendrites reaching out to the water droplet, with the water receding backwards. Toward the end of the clip, the two droplets coalesce.

What is driving the formation of these tendrils, and why? Is there a name for this phenomenon?

Was literally watching ink dry last night, enjoyed seeing this iridescent spot shift around for a while.

Herbin Emerald de Chivor droplet on freshly exposed acrylic substrate, viewed on Amscope ME580 using 10x LMP objective (+10x eyepiece mag + ~2x optical zoom) in reflected mode with crossed polars. Imaged using pixel 9 pro phone mounted to eyepiece.

1st photo: reflected light with crossed polars

2nd photo: transmitted light with crossed polars

~200x magnification, Amscope ME580, ink on freshly exposed acrylic substrate roughly 10 minutes after being applied.

Planning to take images of the dried ink at roughly the same location later this week.

Can I please get a name for and an explanation of the behavior I observed when pipetting whole milk into coffee under the microscope? It's really so neat to observe and I would like to know more about why it happens. Thanks!

Played around with Herbin's Emerald de Chivor, Diamine Lady Grey, and Diamine Ancient Copper fountain pen inks on a polypropylene. Added liquids include: distilled water, 0.2wt% carrageenan in distilled water, vegetable glycerin, and isopropanol.

Imaged using a Premiere SMZ-07 stereo microscope + Pixel 9 pro mounted to the eyepiece. This is a 60x speed gif of process footage.