<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV>Fun! What a blast! <DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Might be of some help, and is just nice to have - There is an excellent text on microscopes available free online by Mortimer Abramowitz - Microscope Basics and Beyond. It has great explanations for Kohler illumination, depth of field, oil immersion, etc.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I've been trying to upgrade my (very) old kit scope since it tops out at 320x and doesn't have a camera adapter. There has been some really nice hardware on eBay - binocular, American Optics, 1000x Oil etc, selling for less than US$300.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><A href="http://www.olympusmicro.com/primer/basicsandbeyond.pdf">http://www.olympusmicro.com/primer/basicsandbeyond.pdf</A></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I think if you leave your spore traps by your heating/cooling vent intakes, or under the front of the couch, you'll have enough sample after one twenty-four hour period, perhaps even one day (8hr) of activity (such as a Saturday). </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>This document also talks about swabbing instead of trapping:</DIV><DIV><A href="http://www.invironment.com/research/v2n12f1.pdf">http://www.invironment.com/research/v2n12f1.pdf</A></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Which works if you have visual keys that are suspect, sooty splotches, etc.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Happy Hunting!</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Bret Kulakovich</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR><DIV><DIV>On Apr 2, 2006, at 2:23 PM, kevinfreels.com wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"> <DIV><FONT face="Arial" size="2"></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Arial" size="2">My daughters and I want to get some petri dishes and collect samples from what is flying around in the air in the house and see if there is mold and other such things. We plan to collect samples in some kind of medium in the dishes and culture it so we can get decent samples for microscopes. Then we would like to look at it in the microscope and find out what we have. It should be a fun experiment for us all. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Arial" size="2">Does anyone know what kinds of media I should use for collecting and culturing the samples? Or, does anyone know of a website resource for comparing samples with photographs? Our main concern is that we have Strachybotrys running around, but others may be present as well. </FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">_______________________________________________</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">extropy-chat mailing list</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat">http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat</A></DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></DIV></BODY></HTML>