Selecting the right microscope

AE Series

Category: Advanced Inverted Microscopes for Transmitted light

Target specimen: Cell cultures from microbiology, in flasks or petri dishes, on agar or in fluids; water samples from biology

Target customer: Lab technicians, advanced students

This comparison is an approach for classifying different Inverted microscopes in a defined performance range. Here we are talking about Motic’s AE series, meant for routine work in the microbiology lab of universities and related labs of industrial companies.

The following chart is based on the specifications of the basic outfit of both AE models and its available options. Within this series of publications, our rating always rests upon an individual understanding and validation of the actual numerical values.

AE SERIES - Comparison Chart

If money could grow as easy as baker’s yeast…

To watch the budding, it helps if you focus on one square e.g. the upper left; the restless image on the video is caused by the ‘Brownian movement’, water molecules that collide with the yeast cells.

Take some baker’s yeast and grape sugar and dissolve it in a little water, use a cell culture dish and a Motic inverted microscope. With Motic Images Plus 3.0 ML tuned for time laps, shooting frequency one image per minute, you will get the best results.

Yeast cells use sugars to grow. With sufficient oxygen supply - like in this case - the yeasts completely burn their nutrients into water and carbon dioxide, like all aerobic organisms e.g.:

C6H12O6 + 6H2O + 6O2 ==> 6CO2ꝉ + 12H2O

Cyclonexis erinus a rare organism?

Cyclonexis erinus (Chrysophytes, golden algae) is considered to be an algae, difficult to observe. The specimen shown in this video has been found in an aquatic sample taken from a small fen in the Nature Reserve ‘De Teut’ in Belgium, in February 2016 (during quite cold weather).

Only few references about this algae can be found in literature and on the internet. Only a very limited number of the species Cyclonexis sp. is known. Cyclonexis sp. lives in cool, lime poor mountain waters and in acid fens containing Sphagnum. It is mentioned that it is not so rare as is sometimes assumed. It was discovered that these algae disintegrate very quickly when external conditions are changing, causing it to disappear from the aquatic sample.

Easy observation and filming of plankton

When investigating water samples within the framework of hydrobiology, it is very easy to observe and film plankton with the Motic AE31E inverted microscope and the Moticam 1080 camera. The plankton containing water sample is stored in a culture dish, the bottom of which is formed by a calibrated cover glass. The dish is simply placed on the microscope stage. The Moticam 1080 is connected to a monitor. As soon as an interesting organism appears on the monitor screen, it only needs a simple mouse click to record the image.

What has microscopy to do with a beggar?

A connection really exists. Somewhere in the south of the Netherlands, on the estate of late professor Eugene Dubois, is a beautiful lake called 'The Bedelaar' or 'The Beggar'. In this lake, the aquatic micro life has been investigated using Motic microscopes. The movie tells about the results of this microscopic survey, supplemented by information about the professor, about his estate and the renowned hydro biologist Neele Wibaut.

So watch the movie and enjoy the footage of microscopically small underwater organisms.