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I just brought a microscope

I was fascinated with microscopy as a kid, and went through several of those typical “student” microscopes from Gilbert.
Looked at everything I could.
My mom worked at the time for a Catholic hospital, and she became friends with the nun who ran the lab. When the dear lady found out about my hobby, she gifted me with test tubes, slides, pipettes, and other goodies. One time, she sent me a sample of water with a note that said “look at this.”
I did, and the water was crawling with fascinating microbes.

It was holy water from the chapel font.....
 
Bikewer said:
I was fascinated with microscopy as a kid, and went through several of those typical “student” microscopes from Gilbert.
Looked at everything I could.
My mom worked at the time for a Catholic hospital, and she became friends with the nun who ran the lab. When the dear lady found out about my hobby, she gifted me with test tubes, slides, pipettes, and other goodies. One time, she sent me a sample of water with a note that said “look at this.”
I did, and the water was crawling with fascinating microbes.

It was holy water from the chapel font.....
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They were holy microbes though.
 
The Sparrow said:
I bought another one!!!

Best for ever so slightly larger non transparent objects.

I love it. Been looking at leaves, insects, seashells, fossils.
There is a whole other universe in the 'tiny'
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I have the exact same scope.
I use it on low power to help repair watches and assemble fine etched brass parts on model kits.
 
The Sparrow said:
When I 'retire' in 10 weeks, one of the things I want to do much more of is examine small natural things and draw them, in the spirit of 18th and 19th century naturalists.
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That's actually still a thing. There's a whole certification process and everything.
 
As well as the stereo microscope I have an old Vickers microscope with a binocular head. I got it from an auction of lab equipment about twenty years ago, It came with an optional phase contrast condenser and some very nice zeiss oil immersion lenses in a nice little wooden case.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
As well as the stereo microscope I have an old Vickers microscope with a binocular head. I got it from an auction of lab equipment about twenty years ago, It came with an optional phase contrast condenser and some very nice zeiss oil immersion lenses in a nice little wooden case.
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Ooooohh! Phase contrast is in my future somewhere ;)
 
So yesterday I harvested and identified 3 different kinds of lichen.
Under the category of holy crap science is awesome: there is a lichen that grows in the arctic regions that can live for over 8000 years. (that's THOUSAND!!!!)
 
In case you haven't found it, here's a link to the best amateur microscopy site on the web.

http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/

Hundreds of articles in the archive on every aspect of microscopy you can think of.
Invaluable info on fixing specimens, mounting, staining and sectioning etc.

Guides on setting up hardware, lighting techniques and photography.
 
arthwollipot said:
Keep posting pictures!

Years ago there was a thread where someone who had just bought a microscope posted a heap of pictures. Anyone remember that? It was fascinating and educational. I'd love to see someone keep up the tradition.
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Was it this thread I started?

Looking at getting a new one, as the old one won't run under Windows 10 (and probably 8).
 
Microscopy doesn't have to be expensive. There is a whole load of second hand lab equipment at extremely low prices on Ebay. Equivelent new would cost many hundreds or thousands.
A few examples today for less than two hundred pounds.

Fantastic Vickers Binocular head less than two hundred. Phase Contrast built in, Kohler lighting. Four objectives, 100x Oil Immersion down to 4x.


Watson Binocular less than a hundred, agin 100x oil immersion at the top magnification.



Smaller Vickers monocular (can be upgraded) thirty quid. Oil immersion condenser, Rotating stage. Needs a clean but a very good scope,


Lovely Nikon monocular (can be upgraded to binocular head) for sixty quid.
 
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Could someone ask for the thread title to be corrected please?

For the past 18 months all I’ve wanted to post is, “did you bring enough for everyone?”
 
I just got a pretty decent if a bit beatup American Optical scope at a school tag sale, for something under two dollars (four bucks worth of clothing and a couple of items coming to 6). Two objectives in it, and a really nice high eyepoint eyepiece and a working illuminator. Unfortunately, like the last B&L student microscope I got a while ago, the ones with substage illumination tend to have hot spots that make photography difficult. You get more even illumination with a mirror, and although it's not the best scope in other ways, the best photomicrography scope I've got is a once-dirt-cheap but reasonably well made Lafayette one. It's still very difficult to get an even field and good focus, and I have to experiment a bit more with different objectives, but it sure is fun. It's also hard to get good focus with poor depth of field on top of poor optics, but there's hope.

Here's a quick and dirty shot with a Nikon DSLR, using a bodged-up adapter originally made for a Konica, with the Lafayette illuminated through the mirror, on an old Japanese slide that came with the microscope, claiming to be a piece of a fly's wing.

It's getting a bit cold to get stuff out of the pond, but I'm getting there.

flywing.jpg

Oh yes, and you can tell I did not bother to clean all the grunge out of the scope, which has been languishing for too long in dusty environments. And as you can see there's also still a hot spot, owing mostly to the uneven illumination of the lamp used. Way better than the others, though.
 
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With substage illumination you need a proper condenser and iris to control the light and for best photographs you need to be able to focus the light onto the specimen which means Kohler Illumination which involves a condenser lens and iris on the lamp. You can improve it by getting rid of the current lamp and replacing it with a bright white LED and diffuse the light with frosted glass.
 
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