Electron microscopes can allow you see incredibly small things using a beam of electrons rather than a beam of light. They can provide incredibly fine detail, hence why many scientists use them to view tiny things much closer.
In the simpler days, when an electron microscope was used to capture images, someone would hold up a special camera to the display to take a picture of what the microscope was capturing, but in this video, Applied Science shows us a very cool home-brew image capture system for a vintage electron microscope that transfers the signal in real-time to a computer via a USB connection where it can be recorded as an animation.
The animation continues to retain its fine detail, allowing a very small drill bit drilling through some lead to be captured in high quality.
Applied Science shows us the entire math behind the work, as well as all of the charting he used to come up with his figures. This is some awesome stuff, and definitely a great proof of concept for anyone who has ever had interest in trying to wire up a vintage electron microscope to a computer for animation capture.
