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Re: Question about Microscopes

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Posted by GoatWorld on August 24, 2001 at 08:37:25:

In Reply to: Question about Microscopes posted by Sid on August 24, 2001 at 07:47:35:

Hi Sid,

Some of the things that are necessary in a microscope are to have the correct magnification of course. Most of the "looking" you will be doing and finding worms, germs and eggs in is the lower powered settings - X100 to the X600 range, with really less need for the higher magnification.

So keeping this in mind and realizing that "most" scopes you'll see for sale usually are in the power range from X25 to X1200, I myself would prefer more features in a lower power scope than a higher power scope.

From the "if I had to go out and buy another one" department: the ocular eyepiece has always been a problem for me - my eyes get relatively tired from squinting into a small eyepiece and I have seen scopes that have large eyepieces. If I ever break the one I have now, I'm going to get a larger eyepiece scope.

The other thing that I find really helpful is having a battery operated light under the slide platen. You'll see many a scope that has this feature and many a scope that only uses a mirror to catch and direct light into the eyepiece. Get the lighted one.

Now, on actually finding a good scope - I know there are several places that have them available from beginner to professional grade. If you plan to never go beyond doing fecals (in other words, you have no inclination to become a particle microscopist), you'd do well getting one of the scopes available at places like Toys R Us. The last time I looked, they had two types - one in the $39 range and one in the $79 range. I chose the $79 machine.

I'd be a little bit carerful about buying a scope "sight unseen" because alot of times what I've seen happen is that the scope will be a good one, but whoever had it did not know how to use it probably crushed specimens into the lens and then tried to clean it with an abrasive cleaner. A good scope will have a glass lens and not plastic. Check that feature out thoroughly before even considering purchasing a used scope.

Best regards,

Gary Pfalzbot



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