NSCR Holland with Wampe

Cyanotyping for Black Rock

In a couple of weeks I am off to the Black Rock Desert for an amazing trip - to launch balloons and rockets that will contain a device we have made for sampling the air in the Stratosphere to try and detect microbes at 41km above the surface of the earth - above the ozone layer. We'll be sampling the air around the launch sites to check how many microbes are present at ground level and I wanted to record the plates by using what we'll have a lot of - sunshine. So I have used some agar dishes (one with bacteria on the right and one without on the left) as 'masks' on a cyanoprint. And you can really see the little bugs!! The cyanotyping takes advantage of the photochemical properties of iron hexacyanoferrate (which you might know as Prussian blue). I simply painted the light sensitive chemical on to some paper in the dark, left it to dry and then in the sunshine place the two dishes on top for 2 and a half minutes before washing in cold water to stop the process.

Olivetto and gardens

We had a super weekend in the new garden in Guildford, visiting Olivetto for dinner - very tasty pasta with porcini mushrooms and lots of yummy deserts. Then a trip to the Springwatch Fair to view the sun through special telescope (DO NOT try it at home!!). Then farewell to Dougal and Soazig again!