@maxliboiron recently made a great post about using BabyLegs- a research trawl (net system) for monitoring plastic pollution, especially microplastics, in surface water. You can reference this page to learn how to build and deploy the BabyLegs trawl and how to process your samples. In the wiki page about microplastics analysis, she mentions the need for a dissecting microscope, which is different than a compound microscope.
Public Lab is curious if the community microscope, which is a compound microscope in its present state, can be converted into a dissecting microscope for this use. I've made a diagram below, illustrating what I believe to be the conversion process. I haven't tried it out myself but I encourage others to do so and let us know how it goes!
Read more about the difference between the compound and dissecting microscope here.
 do you think we have to flip the dissecting scope so that the materials can be on the same side of the slide as the camera, and don't fall off? i.e. the camera looks down at them?
Or do you think we'd be able to focus through the bottom of a glass or plastic slide or container to view them from below?
Thanks!
<!-- @@$$%% Trimmed Content @@$$%% -->On Wed, Aug 8, 2018 at 5:09 PM \<[notifications@publiclab.org](mailto:notifications@publiclab.org)\> wrote:
> Public Lab contributor [jiteovien](https://publiclab.org/profile/jiteovien) just posted a new research note entitled ' **Can the Community Microscope analyze ocean microplastics?**':
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> Read and respond to the post here: [https://publiclab.org/notes/jiteovien/08-08-2018/can-the-community-microscope-analyze-ocean-microplastics](https://publiclab.org/notes/jiteovien/08-08-2018/can-the-community-microscope-analyze-ocean-microplastics)
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> [[@maxliboiron](/profile/maxliboiron)](https://publiclab.org/profile/maxliboiron) recently made a great post about using BabyLegs- a research trawl (net system) for monitoring plastic pollution, especially microplastics, in surface water. You can reference [this page](https://publiclab.org/wiki/micro) to learn how to build and deploy the BabyLegs trawl and how to process your samples. In the wiki page about [microplastics analysis](https://publiclab.org/notes/maxliboiron/07-19-2018/how-to-analyze-plastics-forensically), she mentions the need for a dissecting microscope, which is different than a compound microscope.
>
> Public Lab is curious if the [community microscope](https://publiclab.org/wiki/micro), which is a compound microscope in its present state, can be converted into a dissecting microscope for this use. I've made a diagram below, illustrating what I believe to be the conversion process. I haven't tried it out myself but I encourage others to do so and let us know how it goes!
>
> 
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> Read more about the difference between the compound and dissecting microscope [here](https://sciencing.com/difference-between-compound-dissecting-microscopes-5576645.html).
>
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