The New Hotness

The Google Pixel 3a camera, unlike the camera in my older Google Pixel XL, takes spectacularly good images through a widefield 5X eyepiece on the stereo zoom microscope:

That’s hand-holding the phone against the eyepiece while manipulating it with the other hand. Definitely not the most stable arrangement, but the camera copes well with slight motions. I really need a gripping hand for the camera, to free up another for the microscope’s focus knob.

For the record:

• Pilot V5RT Extra Fine 0.5 mm cartridge
• Cheap Chinese 1.0 mm pen cartridge
• 0.7 mm mechanical pencil lead

Zooming in (because it’s a stereo zoom microscope and I can), the 1.0 mm ball seems surprisingly un-wetted by its ink:

The Pilot V5 ball seems more smoothly covered:

Those are at the same magnification & crop size, so they’re to the same scale.

This definitely calls for a customized phone-to-eyepiece holder!