Water drop microscope!

SAZAR

Is it posible to make a telescope using water drops?

(water drops are to be on transparent plastic or glass, set at desired distance; convex lense is a free drop, concave is a water drop in a ring (because of surface tension))

Dadface

I think the first microscopes were basically small spherical glass beads acting as magnifying glasses and although the image quality must have been really poor several important discoveries were made with these glasses.Evaporation is the biggest problem I see with water droplets.Perhaps you could use a non volatile liquid.Good luck with it.

You may find it interesting to google "Leeuwenhoek"

Andy Resnick

google is your friend:

http://bizarrelabs.com/micro.htm

SAZAR

My idea was to stack elements with water drops to obtain greater magnification. (not just one water-lens (what... just x2 magnification))

I cut some transparent plastic (some food container; the shape of pieces was irregular - it doesn't mater) and placed water droplets on them but I couldn't find a focus for let alone a combination of just two of them.

I see that microscopes use only convex lenses (http://web.uvic.ca/ail/techniques/sc...ght%20path.jpg) - which is nice for this experiment.

I would really like if someone with experience in optics could figure out the construction for this...

To help: the whole apparatus could be made using only cardboard and transparent plastic!
That's exactly the point of this all - ordinary objects one could find practically anywhere
Cut slits on two small cardboard rectangles and place them upright parallel to each other - they would hold transparent plastic pieces in place (stuck into slits) at preset distances according to optic properties of water.

It doesn't mater that water evaporates - if it can magnify, say, x200 for one minute that's enough.

...Circles could be drawn or etched in plastic so you can easily repeat "construction of lenses" i.e. water drops - drops would be bigger or smaller according to needs to suffice optical construction for desired magnification (200x ...even 600x :D wow!) using water as lens material...

SAZAR

OK, some time has passed - did someone try to figure out geometry to make say 300x magnification with multiple water drops "optical system" (lol)?

(By the way - does it mater how light rays enter eye - I mean - do they have to be parallel or can they by like focusing/diverging and you still see everything sharp (I mean - I guess there is a limit to what eye lens can sharpen-up...))