Would you consider selling posters of that needle shot as a way to support you? I'd love to get a poster of that to hang and I'd love to be able to fund you doing more cool stuff (your channel is great).
Thanks! I really appreciate it. My source image is 1000x1500, which redbubble.com says is not large enough for a poster. I admit, even at 150dpi, it wouldn't be much of a poster. As I upgrade my SEM image acquisition hardware, I'll be able to make higher res images. If you'd like the raw PNG, check out my blog: http://benkrasnow.blogspot.com/
Cool as hell, as usual! You consistently seem to find just the right mixture of inspiration and perspiration. I love how you just turned the knob and hit a button every few minutes, while I'd have spent six weeks trying to automate the stop-motion process.
It's obviously too late now, but you can actually get piezoelectric cartridges with no coils or magnets, made for (very) low-end phonographs.
I suspect the dark area was a piece of lightweight dirt (a tiny lint ball, or sawdust) that began accumulating charge as it was imaged by the electron beam. After 20 minutes or so (20 frames in realtime), the dirt developed enough repulsion force to be launched off the surface of the record. It's sort of like a charged comb or other object repelling styrofoam particles.