Scavenged 100x micro lens for smartphone

I've been having the most fun time! In addition to obsessing about playing guitar, I found a website that shows how to take apart a laser pointer to make a really spiffy micro lens for a smartphone.

That clear spot in the wood is the lens from the laser pointer

I drilled a hole in some wood and pushed the lens into it, then put it up to my iphone camera. I do have a pretty good microscope at home, but this one is portable in the extreme and cheaper than I could ever dream. I'm hoping it might be useful for TM's school, since I don't know what kind of access they have to microscopes. It should work with iPads, that the school already has...

Here are some pictures!

Jersey-knit pants

This moss was really tiny!

A very cute operculum!

When I knocked off the operculum, millions of spores flipped out

Another capsule pic

Baked Bugs (what I found in the light fixture while changing light bulbs)

I really wish I knew more about insects

But I can't even come close on these

This looks like a fly to me, but so many things do. It was tiny tiny tiny!

And these things are flying around my house! Just a few millimeters long.

I might have actually figured this one out, maybe -- a kind of flying aphid, invaded from another continent. Maybe.

This doesn't look like something that could get up that high. Weird.

Looks waspy, no?

Dead insects galore. Almost the size of dust.

Here we go, something more familiar! A hairy leaf vein (species unknown).

I tried to do an epidermal peel but this magnification is really not even close to high enough.

Closeup of a sunflower petal

The bottom of a sunflower petal (it's a flower of course)

An inner flower of that same sunflower

Cheerios! :)

Thread!

pencil

Tablecloth (which reminds me I should have put up pictures of things normal size for comparison)

onion peel

Apple skin (some things work better than others...this is bland)

The cat is bored

Mold on an old apple I found 

Bird poop :)

A shell from the beach

More protective leaf spines

leaf hairs

Kleenex

Really bad lighting on my purple sponge...