Rocks and Microscopy > Seymchan pallasite meteorite by Ian Butler

Taken with a stereomicroscope using a lumix LX3 digiscoping through the eyepiece courtesy of a camlink mount. The image consists of 76 individual pictures stiched using PTGUI. Thanks to the curvature of the camera lens, plus that of the microscope this was a tricky one to stich. Not so sharp eyed observers will notice that on the left hand side, where I started, the focus is a little more erratic than on the right when I was getting into the swing of things. Obviously a few things to address with regard to focus, lighting (would a vertical as opposed to oblique light help?) but a first effort at using a stereo microscope this way, so in general OK.

The Seymchan Pallasite was discovered in Russia in 1967 and is a main group pallasite with anomalous Ir content. The brown crystals to which the FeNi is interstital are olivine. There's about 300kg of Seymchan knocking about, about of fifth of which is pallasite (the rest is coarse octahedrite) and the meteorite itself is one of about 35 which are classified as pallasites. The sample comes form my collection.