Thread: Microscopes buying them...

New to all its stuff. I am interested in buying a microscope, my main aim is to look at cells, the organelles. Is this possible with a light microscope? \I would like to get the info on to a PC too.

Any ideas folks?

Zero

Apart from the nucleus and some vacuoles you're not going to be able to see organelles with a light microscope. Some special stains can allow you to see some structures like flagella.

As to getting it on a computer, they do sell digital camera eyepieces, and some high end digital microscopes controlled entirely by computer. Digital microscopes that produce entirely digital images have lower magnification than optical microscopes, I think they peek around 600-700 magnification. They're really useful for looking at prepared slides of human tissue and the like, since you can make pictures easily and view things on a screen in real time. They're also way easier on the eyes when you've been at it for a few hours. Alternatively, with a light microscope I've seen friends produce pictures merely by sticking a digital camera up to the eyepiece.

Eyepiece cameras on their own usually cost a couple hundred, and can be added to a low cost light microscope, which can run from few hundred dollars to a couple grand. For objectives you want to have 5X or 10x, 20x, 50x or 60x, and 100x (your eyepiece is generally another 10x so that gives you a maximum of 1000 times magnification, enough to make out bacteria clearly, and that's the best a standard light microscope can do).

OK - so thats me out. I either buy an electron micrscope (and sell the wife) ore I have just discovered UTuBE has some great picks of mitosis etc

thanks for the info

Originally Posted by ZeroZero

OK - so thats me out. I either buy an electron micrscope (and sell the wife) ore I have just discovered UTuBE has some great picks of mitosis etc

thanks for the info

Where can you get an electron microscope for a wife ?

Craig's List no doubt :-)

have a look at this microscope, it may be what you are looking for.


Cambridge Stereoscan Scanning Electron Microscope SEM