Lacewings or -literally translated from dutch- “gauze flies” : their appearance is included in their name. The lacewing I found at home was a green one (Chrysoperla rufilabris). There are not too many insects around here early spring. I learnt from previous posts that there are many more variants.
“Three times a lacewing” reads as three setups: 1) reflected light 2)fluorescent and 3) darkfield.
The first three photos were made with reflected light. Because the lacewing is green I wanted to pick a contrasting background, and used a red piece of cardboard to establish this. The background was illuminated seperately by a led, furthermore there was a flash combined with an Ikea reading lamp for the accents. Photo 1 : 1,6x/0.05. Photo 2 : 4x/0.12
Photo 3- 11x(Leitz Ultropak)/0.25 -is showing the characteristic eye with its rainbow of colours.
Next question was : what will it look like under a fluorescence microscope?
The answer can be seen photos 4 and 5 (9x/0,20). Some insect eyes are really lightening up under a fluorescent lamp, here the subtle mix of natural and unnatural colours puts the insect in a different light.
In order to proceed with darkfield illumination the head and one of the wings were mounted. Photo 6 is stitched from observation with a 6,3/0,20 objective. The original image was not too colourful from itself and the hairs were showing some irrelevant colours. Therefore it was directed through a green filter before reaching the camera, and desaturated while postprocessing. Not much larger than a normal frame, this photo suffered most from compression, even at 1920 pixels width specific details get lost.
