Yeah, 1000x? I figured they're either coated or the bugs have some kind of conductive exoskeleton :lol: because some of those surfaces are too smooth. Really neat coloring job, though.
And I dunno if they would have used ESEM - they were certainly taken with low accelerating voltages because they're showing great topography. I've never done biological samples but I can't imagine you want to blast them with 40kV unless you wanted to see what they ate for lunch.
Yeah, the ESEM stands for environmental SEM, and can be operated at high vacuum, or low vacuum. It helps with charging phenomenon quite a bit because there is an increased partial pressure of water that helps absorb excess electrons. I am sure it probably 5kV or less, done with backscatter instead of standard imaging so that you can see the topography better. Some have duel backscatter detectors to allow multiple angles to be constructed into a more 3-D image.
It also could be FESEM, but those are way more expensive and difficult to use, and are made for 100,000X so I doubt he would buy one of those just to look at bugs :lol:
EDIT: Nevermind, just realized you probably knew all of this or even more. My bad :facepalm:
