'Heine-IPC': A New COLOR Phase Contrast System?

One incredibly rare bit of microscope technology is the near-legendary Leitz 'Color Heine' phase contrast condenser, shown below, for reference, in comparison with its "common" (non-color) cousin:

Supposedly, only 300 of these very specialized devices were ever made and only a very few are thought to survive today in working condition. Asking prices for working examples today are in the many thousands of dollars – one measure of their uniqueness, and scarcity. Few in microscopy have ever actually seen one, let alone actually used one, and even documentation is almost non-existant. Puplished photos taken through the unit are also extremely rare.

Yet, one benefit of the Color Heine is the knowledge that it is technically possible to achieve Color Phase Contrast using an otherwise ordinary microscope, resulting an underlying desire to achieve this elusive end – somehow!

Now, the simultaneous availability of both an "ordinary" Leitz Heine phase contrast condenser, as well a working example of the not-quite-so-rare Nikon Interference Phase Contrast (IPC) unit, has resulted in an uncommon opportunity to experiment with the combination of these two disparate devices, in the hope of creating a practical and truly flexible 'Color Phase Contrast' System.

The main limitation of the Nikon unit is the matter of finding a condenser with phase rings which acceptably match the phase plates inside the unit – in practice, something much easier said than done... In this light [sic] it was hoped that the Heine condenser could address this problem, resulting in a wider range of optics which could function usefully with the IPC.

As mentioned in a much earlier post, the Nikon IPC was apparently intended to function solely with the old Nikon S-series (short barrel) Achromat objectives, even though much better Nikon optics were readily available, even back then! This odd design limitation seems to have killed the sales of the unit, at least in the US. Still, anone who has one of these systems no doubt has lusted, at least at some time, for the chance to use it with a good Nikon Apo or other fine objective! Thus, the desire to find some practical way to enable this sort of usage, and the subsequent choice of the Leitz Heine condenser as a possible solution... 

But, as the Heine was designed to fit only Leitz microscopes, and the Nikon IPC unit only Nikon  microscopes, a certain amount of "Frankenscope" engineering is to be expected in "marrying" these two separate pieces in the hope of creating a new, viable (and practical) Color Phase Contrast system.

The initial phases of this development effort are now nearing completion and the results should be posted here in the very near future.

Until then, the image set below shows a limited sample of the sort of initial results that may be obtained from this new, "Heine-IPC System", using just ordinary (e.g: non-phase) optics on an unidentified diatom:

Note: Click on the above for larger images. 

As with any development effort of this sort, improvements in both image color and image quality are expected soon... . 

[ NOTE: For the UPDATE to this Post – see Post of Sept.30, 2017.] 

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