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Microscope images of a few blades - recent purchase

I also got a tuck of Astra SP (Green package) today. They look just like the GP to me:
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This is a Tatra. There are some blobs on either side of the apex (my guess is PFTE coating) and I had a really hard time trying to focus this picture as those blobs really caught the light:
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And here is another fresh BIC Chrome Platinum. Much better picture than the BIC pics I took before (I'm gradually getting the hang of this). The edge on this BIC looks better than the ones I've been looking at previously
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Really interesting thread here. Not positive how to read the pictures, I confess, but what did interest me was the Bic. I've truly found Bics to be the most variable blade -- very often I'll have a dud. When they're good they're great, but when they're not......
 
The pictures at the beginning of this thread were looking at the edge from the side (blade lying flat on its side and looking down at the edge).

These more recent photos are with the blade standing up and looking down directly at the very apex of the sharp edge. The light I have on one side has a bit of an orangeish color and that's why one side looks more red/orange while the other side looks more blueish. The only part that is in focus is the actual point (apex) and on either side of that sharp edge you see the beveled part of the sharpened blade getting more and more out of focus on either side as it slopes down and away from the lens.

Here's a crude drawing of how these latest pictures are taken. The blue oval represents the microscope lens and the yellow/orange circles are the light sources shining on the blade
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Very interesting. Have you taken any progressive photos of the same blade through out it's life? What I mean is after each shave until it's time to replace it. It would be very interesting to me to see how the edge wears with use.
 
Here is a picture as a side view (blade lying flat and looking down at the edge from above). This is a Gillette Platinum that I've Shaved with 3 times.

I thought it might be interesting useful to show some perspective of what we're actually looking at with the 1000x lens

This is 250x optical on the left and 1000x optical on the right. 250x lens is far enough away from the edge that I can shine light on top (hence the black background) but at 1000x the lens is less than 1mm from the edge and a better microscope would have oil immersion lens so I have to juggle a light from the side trying to get it just right so it'll cast faint shadows and reflections on the top. And then I adjust the intensity (very dim) of a back light underneath the blade shining up towards the lens to show the actual edge (the backlight reflects off the lens and lights the top a bit but it washes out a lot of the detail).

Anyway that's a Gillette platinum after 3 complete shaves and it still feels nice and sharp like it'll last a few more shaves.
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