Is this a good deal?(Misc/ microscope kit)

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Today, I purchased a 3000x science tech lighted zoom microscope with 128 piece accessory kit (includes projection head) in carrying case for $75. Is this a good deal? It was an unwanted Christmas present a friend couldn't exchange for his kids and he knew I would be interested.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), January 09, 2002

Answers

I recently purchased a toy microscope at toys-r-us for as a gift; it was about $25.

-- Kevin (kevinmail@earthlink.net), January 09, 2002.

One of these days, I'm going to learn how to type.

-- Kevin (kevinmail@earthlink.net), January 09, 2002.

Jay, We recently purchased a used Olympus microscope for use in my lab at work for $400. It has 3 objectives: 10X 20X and 40X(the oculars are 10X so the highest magnification is 400X). "Zoom" scopes typically give you a great range but the resolution can be lacking. I bought such a scope while in college that functioned well enough for that purpose. It was about what you paid for yours, but this was 25 years ago. Thus, I'd say you did get your moneys worth, as long as the resolving power of the scope is sufficient for your intended purpose Dwight

-- Dwight (summit1762@aol.com), January 09, 2002.

Dwight,

I used it today to do yeast cuture counts on a working of blackberry wine and it performed much better than the 750x scope I have been using. I especially like using the overhead projection attachment. Looking at the products cd included with the kit, I think my next addition to my lab will be the Intel PC microscope after I upgrade my monitor for better display resolution.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), January 09, 2002.


Jay, you'd better hurry if you want the Intel product - they've canned their "gadgets" production. They were doing a clearance sale before Christmas. If you're interested, check their site and see if anything's left; and check any distributors.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), January 10, 2002.


Kevin, don't sweat the small stuff, if we learned how to type, then we would have no excuse not to get real jobs.......

-- Annie Miller in SE OH (annie@1st.net), January 10, 2002.

Hi Jay,

Looks like a great deal however, no optical microscope has the resolution to effectively give you 3000X You might have a 300X objective with a 10X occular to give a theoretical 3000X magnification. The highest effective optical microscope uses quartz lenses, uv illumination and a drop of oil between the objective and the speciman (oil immersion). These cost around 10K dollars or more and still give only an effective mag of about 1000X. So why is this? It has to do with the physical wavelengths of the visible light spectrum. If you had perfect optics, eventually, you would not be able to resolve items that were closer together than some multiple of the wavelength.

Anyway, I had a home microscope as a kid and better scopes in HS and College and even better ones in Graduate school. Which did I have the most fun with? The 25 dollar one that I got at the hobby shop. So, great score! You will have fun with it and turn others on to that world. You will have an effective magnification of about 600X, beyond that things will not show too much more detail. Even at 600X things look really cool! With the projection head, you can magnify even more, but youstill won't get improved resolution...but it is a blast to project microscope images.

Have fun.

Oscar

-- Oscar H. WIll III (owill@mail.whittier.edu), January 10, 2002.


Oscar,

I see what yu mean . The projection attachments raise the pwr of magnification. The basic scope is 600x. Deceptive labeling strikes again. Its sufficient for evaluating yeast growth, so I guess its o.k

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), January 10, 2002.


Jay, my husband and I sell the type of high resolution microscopes that oscar is talking about. I'd say that if it does what you need it to do, i.e., if you can see the yeast clearly, then you got a great deal. You can have fun looking at all kinds of stuff at that magnification.

-- Christine Baillie (towanda515@yahoo.com), January 11, 2002.

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