Buying a Microscope

[JoJoIndianapolis]

DR. Ron,

Where is the best place to find a nice used microscope? What are the price ranges as well.

Thanks, Joe R.

[Mike_Noren]

Originally posted by JoJoIndianapolis
DR. Ron,

Where is the best place to find a nice used microscope? What are the price ranges as well.

If money is tight and you know what you want: ebay. Otherwise a used 'scope dealer can give you more help, but their 'scopes cost more.

Do you want to look at single cells or tissue smears? If so you want a compound microscope, which uses incident light, with magnifications of up to 1000x. Used quality Zeiss, Nikon, Olympus, Leica or Leitz microscopes in perfect working order can be found from $150 up.
There's really no point in buying 'toy' compound microscopes - they're cheap but pretty much useless. The exception is Intels QX3 digital video microscope, which is capable of fairly nice pictures.

If you want to look at multi-celled animals or things which are visible to the naked eye, e.g. amphipods, copepods, rocks... Then a Stereo microscope, which uses reflected light and has magnifications up to about 60x, is a better choice. Good used stereos from the above companies cost about $1000, but a $300 (new) russian stereo microscope is perfectly OK for viewing and borderline acceptable for photographing. When it comes to stereo mikes, the most useful magnifications are from 5x - 40x.

[JoJoIndianapolis]

thanks for the reply - i'll look in to it