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Microscopes

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We need to buy one as a gift.

Neither myself or my husband have any idea of what to look for when buying one.

It would be a for casual use as the person who wants it is a teenager ans doesn't need it for school but we don't want a toy. This might be the launching point for a great scientific career!

Thanks in advance for any advice!
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💬 5 comments

  1. tinypliny ·

    I would recommend a high power microscope. What is your budget?

  2. jenks ·

    see if you can get in touch with the med school- when I was a med student we all had to have scopes, and everyone would buy/sell them every year. They're decent scopes, but even used would probably run you a couple hundred... (if I remember right they're >1000 new) hmm, so maybe that's not the best idea? But it's worth asking....

  3. tinypliny ·

    If you actually shopped around in the toys department, you might be able to get them cheaper. Look for:
    - some source of illumination of the stage (where the slides are placed)
    - Greater than 400x magnification. Anything less is not going to be useful for high school microscopy/ cell structures.
    - Movable lens arm and adjustible focal length for the lenses.
    - At least one low power lens (<400x) for gross adjustment of the lenses.
    - Good reviews (of course)

    I had one from Olympus back home. It was pretty good but it was expensive. When I bought it the highest magnifying lens was around 600x but I upgraded to 1000x with an extra lens when I graduated from high school and went to college.

  4. tinypliny ·

    I just remembered one more detail. One of my lenses had an oil-immersion option - you would put a drop of dense oil (came with the microscope) over the cover-slip of the slide and lower the lens in it. That lens had nearly a 2000x magnification.

  5. tinypliny ·

    Sorry for spamming - the oil immersion lens is probably not a good option for a standard teenager. :) It does need a lot of care and cleaning! I remember constantly dreading that I would forget to clean up one day and waste all that money that went into the upgrade, thankfully that never happened because I developed this OCD of cleaning up after every use. It was a major pain but totally worth it. Anyway, make sure you explain this to the teenager. The oil immersion lens attachment is almost like a costly whiny baby.

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