Mushrooms and friends

[Damon]

I have been exploring the UV induced Fluorescence of nature around my property in the NJ Pine Barrens. So far I have encountered lichens, mushrooms, moss, grass, leaves, crab spiders, other spiders, & pine sap that fluoresce when a UV light source is shined on them.

 

Source of lighting:

--For visible pictures--LED flashlight with ~ 75 LED's.

--UV induced Fluorescence pictures--Blak Ray B100 AP UV light

 

Camera:

--Canon SX50 in manual mode, automatic WB and no filters. Also working with Canon 5D.

 

More to come...

 

-Damon

 

Visible

 

UV-Induced Visible Fluorescence

[Damon]

Took the Blak Ray out again and scouted around amongst the pines and oaks. Added 20 feet to the extension cord just to freak Baffe out--just kidding! :D

Bluish seems to be the theme tonight. Although I am not sure what "blue" actually means. It's like being a kid in a candy store with this light. Looking at the grass--perhaps all chlorophyll doesn't fluoresce red.

 

All images taken with a canon SX50 with an LED for visible light and a Blak Ray B100 AP for the UV Induced Fluorescence pics.

 

Andrea, maybe you could help me with how to post the names of things and/or camera details above the images. For instance, the 1st pic is a slug eating the remains of a mushroom. Or if you want it another way let me know.

 

-Damon

[colinbm]

Excellent work Damon

Did you have to bite a piece outa the mushy first :D

 

I spotted a grass species like this last night, it was surrounded by a different species that didn't fluoresce.

Cheers

Col

[nfoto]

Keep the good stuff coming ...

 

Must take my UV torch to the woods before the first snowfall ...

[Damon]

Col--how is that light working out?

That is Russulla emetica which if I had taken a bite out of (and ingested) I would have spent the rest of the day in the bathroom...

 

Thanks Bjørn, darn storm is here and rain is keeping me indoors. Should bring more fungi though.

 

-D

[Andrea B.]

Lovely stuff, Damon.

 

We'll work on the titles and info after I get my Visitors' Gallery work done. (I'm so behind!!!)

I might suggest separate topics for future searchability. Like the slug separate from fungi separate from tree sap.

 

Oh MAN those 'shrooms!!!! I get those Russulas in my yard under the oak trees sometimes. Who knew they were fluorescent? Soooooo cool.

 

Damon you have given us all a boost and a renewed interest in things Fluor.

 

Don't forget to check out your local lichens under that Blak-Ray.

 

 

***********

From the journal Wood Science & Technology we have this article about using UV-fluorescence to identify wood types. Click the Look Inside link. Only the first 2 pages are shown. (But it is enough to make me happy that I don't have to set up such an elaborate experimental apparatus .)

http://link.springer...00225233#page-1

 

There is a journal for everything it seems.

[Damon]

Re: Wood and Science article:

I did notice the ends of the pieces of a type of red pine I cut a few days ago were fluorescing blue pretty good. Caught me off guard actually. Maybe the sap, although it totally blanketed the entire surface of the end. The black oak I had cut showed nothing.

 

-D

[Damon]

Noe, D. 2014. Unknown Spp. Mushroom photographed in visible and Ultraviolet-induced visible fluorescence, UVIVFL.

Sweetwater, NJ

8 November 2014

Wild Species

 

Comment

I don't know this mushroom to species. I will come back and edit if I ever ID it. This little guy was plain jane brownish is visible light but on fire under UVIVFL. The deeper I get into UVIVFL, the stranger it gets. Just start pulling away the pine needles and the whole forest floor is alive with light.

Below you will see some other orangish stuff glowing near the shroom. This got me thinking so I dug some of this up, under& around the main mushroom and it turns out that it is the mycelium (vegetative part of fungus). Glowing underground was not what I expected. Who is detecting it there? Worms/insects? C'mon Nature, knock it off already! Could it be there are chemicals in there that fluoresce and that's the end of the story?

 

Visible Light: Canon SX50, LED, 1/2 s @ f/8 ISO 80, No Filters.

 

 

UVIVFL: Canon SX50, Blak Ray 100AP, 15 s @ f/8 ISO 80, No Filters.

 

 

Diptych

 

Reference:

None Yet

 

Published 8 November 2014

[Damon]

A little closer now--

 

Noe, D. 2014. Unknown Spp. Mushroom photographed in visible and Ultraviolet-induced visible fluorescence, UVIVFL.

Sweetwater, NJ

8 November 2014

Wild Species

 

Visible Light: Canon SX50, LED, 1/8 s @ f/8 ISO 80, No Filters.

 

 

 

UVIVFL: Canon SX50, Blak Ray 100AP, 4 s @ f/8 ISO 80, No Filters.

 

 

Diptych

 

 

Here a couple more so you can see the stalks. These two are getting older (which in mushroom speak could be 2 days!) Bruised or damaged areas seem to go green.

Visible Light: Canon SX50, LED, 0.6 s @ f/8 ISO 80, No Filters.

 

 

UVIVFL: Canon SX50, Blak Ray 100AP, 4 s @ f/8 ISO 80, No Filters.

 

 

Diptych

 

 

Reference:

None Yet

 

Published 8 November 2014

[Damon]

Noe, D. 2014. Unknown Spp. Mushroom photographed in visible and Ultraviolet-induced visible fluorescence, UVIVFL.

Sweetwater, NJ

8 November 2014

Wild Species

 

Comment

A very tiny mushroom whose size can be realized by looking at the pine needles. A curious little shroom. I am trying to improve on my technique as I go on but in this case I went the other way. It was 40° F, both my knees were soaked from the wet ground and I was out of beer. Should explain the blurry green shot. That's my story and I'm sticking by it.

 

Visible Light: Canon SX50, LED, 1/4 s @ f/8 ISO 80, No Filters.

 

 

UVIVF: Canon SX50, Blak Ray 100AP, 0.3 s @ f/8 ISO 80, No Filters.

 

 

Diptych

[Damon]

Noe, D. 2014. Unknown Spp. Mushroom photographed in visible and Ultraviolet-induced visible fluorescence, UVIVFL.

Sweetwater, NJ

8 November 2014

Wild Species

 

Comment

I was able to see these guys from pretty far away with the Blak Ray. They have a strange kind of nuclear glow to them.

 

Visible Light: Canon SX50, LED, 1.6 s @ f/8 ISO 80, No Filters.

 

 

UVIVF: Canon SX50, Blak Ray 100AP, 15 s @ f/8 ISO 80, No Filters.

 

 

Diptych

[colinbm]

Very extensive work Damon, you'll have a PhD soon.

Col

[Damon]

A Piney with a PhD, that's a new one.

I am convinced you can pick anything out in nature and spend the better part of your life exploring and studying it.

-D

 

Added by Editor from moved thread:

 

Got another Blak Ray today. Looking forward to tripping over 2 cords now. Maybe I should set up a place indoors and bring the specimens to me. Not quite the same but might get better images.

 

Update on White Balance problem I was having with the Canon SX50. I could not for the life of me get the WB set for my LED. Tried custom with white card and lots of other stuff I read. Anyway, I set it to "flash" mode in one of the offered settings and the pics come out just right. Oh well who cares as long as it works.

[Andrea B.]

Controlling the Pine Barrens wasn't enough!

Inevitably Damon turned his Blak-Ray onto the rest of New Jersey.

Soon there was no exit left un-fluoresced along the GSP...

...and he began to have thoughts of World Domination.

[Damon]

Your editing skills are commendable and your psychic powers are formidable. So much for my plans remaining secret!

 

Look out, it's UVIVFL Man!

Somehow it just doesn't have the ring I was hoping it would. :)

 

-D

[Damon]

I have been working on a studio (in other words clearing half a shed out) for this winter and am almost finished.

 

One aspect of UVIVFL that I find fascinating is that the dullest object can light up like a Xmas tree under UV. Nature has supplied us with a neverending supply of cool material to shoot.

 

Take a look at this as a very plain and not very interesting visible shot and then the subsequent UVIVFL:

 

 

Rotting stump in Visible LED light

 

 

Rotting stump in UVIVFL

 

 

Diptych

 

-D

 

Side Notes

--so far Chlorophyll seems to be mainly Red, Green, or Blue (RGB?) :)

--there is a extensive red coating on many things around my yard--even plain sand is red under UV

[colinbm]

That is pretty rotten Damon....

Col

[Damon]

Col, I had a feeling you would like this one. I was thinking of you when I posted it... :)

 

-D

[colinbm]

Ha ha.... I have noticed that some living leaves in UVIVFL relfect bluish/purlpe on the top side & redish on the bottom side.

Col

[Damon]

The whole leaf thing is weird. I have leaves on the same plant red and green under UVIVFL. I did notice that my American Holly tree still has all green leaves in visible and UVIVFL and it has thick/dense leaves. Maybe densely packed chlorophyll? Perhaps evergreens have chlorophyll that takes longer to go through senescence so it takes longer to show change.

Or perhaps it is 1:00 AM and I don't know what I am talking about...

 

-D

[colinbm]

Someone will sort it out for us Damon.

3:PM and I don't know what I am talking about... :)

Col

[Andrea B.]

This chart does show that the excitation wavelengths for chlorophyll fluorescence peak in the blue area around 430nm. So it is the very near UV in our various lamps and torches which causes most of the visible red leaf fluorescence that we see.

Someone should experiment with a blue LED shined on leaves.

 

 

If you really want to know more........

http://www.yorku.ca/...html/index.html

[Damon]

My Blak-Rays are only at ~365 I thought. It's interesting, thanks for that reading material.

 

-D

[Damon]

Andrea, what do you think of having other areas in UVIVFL to post? --kind of like Regular UV. So for ex. you have UV Fauna but no UVIVFL fauna place. It's all lumped into one.

 

-D

[colinbm]

Damon, as far as I know, I don't own one, but the Blak-Ray is mainly 365nm. It has a Mercury HID lamp & a LWUV filter (longwave ultraviolet filter), therefore 365nm, will be the main wavelength, but with some IR, that will need to be filtered before it gets to the camera's sensor, either on the lamp or on the camera. I do have other, less powerful Mercury HID lamps.

Col