I Spy With My Little Loupe

After spending some time looking at the large and distant with binoculars and telescope, I thought I'd like to look at the small and near, especially when the planets, weather, and my work schedule fail to cooperate. 

After reading Microscopy as a Hobbby by Mol Smith, I decided to start with something even more basic: a 10x loupe. Another of Smith's books, I Spy with my Little Loupe,  helped me decide what to buy. It also gave tips on using my cell phone camera to take photos through my loupe. 

As I only have two hands, I found juggling my phone, loupe, and specimens awkward until I hit on the idea of using a steel cookie sheet as a work surface, and holding my loupe in place with magnets:

I used a sheet of printer paper as a background. My loupe's built-in LEDs provided reasonably good lighting.

What to look at first? Adventures with a Hand Lens by Richard Headstrom suggested looking at the paper itself:

It had a fine texture, but 10x magnification was enough to see the fibers. Next I tried a page of Headstrom's book. The texture was a bit courser, and when I zoomed in, I could see the ink had bled a little beyond the border of each printed letter.

I tried another book, this one with glossy pages. The texture was finer, with less ink bleeding.

I zoomed in on a photo of a daisy in the same book. The ink in the photo made a woven pattern distinct from the fibers of the paper.

I didn't have a newspaper handy, so I tried a bit of paper towel. Much coarser fibers, and a pattern of dots embossed in it:

Headstrom suggested cloth. Here are the fibers of a knit shirt, lit from behind:

An eggshell was disappointing, mostly because its curves made it hard to hold everything still and focus. Next I tried ground coffee:

Ground coffee made me think of ground pepper, which turned out to be more colorful than I expected:

Pepper suggested salt. Its crystals were transparent cubes:

I wondered if sea salt crystals would look different. Its crystals seemed to be larger and more rectangular:

MSG had long, thin crystals. I couldn't determine the cross-sectional shape at this magnification.

Not surprisingly, kosher salt had larger crystals:

Rock salt, by comparison, looked like boulders:

I decided to try other seasonings. Onion powder:

Garlic powder:

Ground cinnamon:

Chili powder:

 

Thyme:

A pleasant Sunday afternoon, all told.