Please don't tell me I bought a piece of crap, I'm still riding the wave of excitement.
http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B005TJ5CEG?redirect=true&ref_=s9_simh_gw_p21_d0_i3
I'm excited to do some first hand viewing of natural biology and such.
I've always wanted one since I was a kid. Got a box of prepared slides too to start me off.
Any other enthusiasts out there? Any good forums I should join?
Any tips or ideas?
I used to play with a microscope as a child with my father. It was great fun. However, I am today involved with other hobbies. I can tell you what we used to do when Dad was alive.
Our big subject was pond water. There are animals in pond water that are too small to see with the unaided eye, but easy to see with a microscope.
Dad would modify glass slides, adding a 'well' so that the slides could hold a drop of water. We would go to a nearby pond and take home a jar of water. We would take samples from the jar to look at them.
We had a low power microscope (< ×300). Therefore, we could not see unicellular life. Most of the organisms that we saw were very small arthropods. We bought books so that we could name some of these organisms. We seldom saw the same type of organism twice. We also saw algae. We never had to stain these organisms or prepare them in any other way for viewing.
There was a small problem getting them into focus. More on that later.
Here is one example of what we saw. We could see some of them barely with the unaided eye. We would see a piece of dust moving opposite the current in the jar. When we looked close, it was a creature that looked like it had one eye and antennae. It was a crustacean called a Cyclops.
We saw algae. Some of the algae had cells so big we could see the individual cells. However, this was an exception to the rule. The algae were not as impressive as the animals, but they did look very strange. We looked particularly in regions of the ponds that had lots of algae. That is where the animals like to hang out.
We used magnification between ×50 and ×300. The advantage of this range is that one could follow live animals that were moving. At this range, chromatic aberration is negligible even for cheap microscopes. Furthermore, the depth of field is very large for small magnifications. When the animal moved toward or away from the objective, the image got blurry. We would follow the creature by moving the objective lens up and down.
Organisms are not completely transparent at this range of magnification. Therefore, they don't need staining. However, the animals that we saw were translucent (i.e., partly transparent). You could see their internal organs moving while they were still alive.
We saw these creatures in color. There was some chromatic aberration probably due to the cheap lenses. However, it did not ruin the colorful view. Our cheap microscopes were not diffraction limited. However, even the best microscope at high magnifications has chromatic aberration due to diffraction.
Minerals are interesting to look at with the low magnification powers. Most rocks are polycrystalline, with interesting patterns.
We could not see unicellular life forms like protozoa and bacteria at low magnification. Algae sometimes had cells large enough to be seen. Onion skin has cells large enough to be seen.
We never bought a high power microscope (900× to 2000×) because high power microscopy is more involved. Most every organism is transparent at that range. Therefore, one usually has to stain the organisms that you are looking at. Staining kills them, of course. The depth of field is extremely small for high magnifications. This mean that even if they were alive, they would go out of focus when they moved even a small distance up or down.
Aberration is a very bad problem for high magnifications. Don't buy a cheap microscope with high magnification. There are all sorts of aberration at high power, including color aberration. The quality of the lenses are very important for high magnification.
Accessories, accessories. I am afraid that to really appreciate the world of the small, one should buy equipment in addition to the microscope to take advantage. Slides and holders can be fashioned or bought to hold the type of samples that you are most interested in. I mentioned the slides that my father modified to hold pond water. Optical filters can greatly enhance the viewing experience. Microscopic photography is very interesting if you can deal with the photographic equipment. Digital microscopes have all sorts of advantages, especially when it comes to photography. Digital filters can often many of the same things as optical filters, and some extra things.
High magnifications require more accessories than low magnifications. I mentioned the transparency problem, for instance. You may want to look at bacteria after staining. If you want to look at living bacteria, then you may have to buy special polarizing lenses.
Semitransparent objects become more visible between crossed polarizer filters. There is nothing to do about the field of view problem, however. If the creature decides to dive, then you have to dive with it. Contrast enhancement with digital filters can also help see the semitransparent. Sometimes, liquids other than water can be used to make organisms more visible. If the liquid has a different index of refraction than the organism, the organism becomes more visible. This may also kill the organism at first.
Hint: Ever material on earth is transparent in some size range. One can easily make gold foil so thin it is transparent. So imagine what an amoeba looks like that is as large as the foil is thick.
I did grow tired of the microscope after a few years. However, I am looking back now. I realize that it was because I was lazy. I didn't try to make special equipment. My father could have bought extra equipment. Maybe I should have bought a better microscope.
So I suggest starting with the low magnifications and work up to the high magnifications. Buy or make equipment to optimize your experience at each stage. Making it will take more time, but will save money. Maybe it will give more satisfaction, too!
Maybe you could start with minerals (50×), go to organisms in pond water and soil (300×), look at eukaryotic cells (600×) and then go to bacterial cells (> ×1000). Get into microscopic photography and digital enhancement. Use those optical filters where appropriate.
Don't be afraid to experiment. Polish those rocks in different ways. Stain the creatures, sometimes. Do experiments with animal behavior. Do experiments in protozoa behavior! Use polarizing filters and color filters. Stick with one microscope scale until you have entirely mastered this scale. Try to get the best photograph possible of any subject that interests you.
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