Digital microscopes

[UglyCasanova]

I'm looking to buy a digital microscope for my son for Christmas. Celestron makes a few, and I'm wondering if anyone has had any experience with them or one from any other brand. I'm not looking for one that can see at a cellular level, although if they exist within my price range that is definitely a bonus.

I want to keep it under $100 (Amazon has these at a decent price right now), and I want it to be digital so he can hook it up to his laptop to take pictures. I would imagine this is going to be used primarily on bugs.

The two I'm looking at are the Celestron Amoeba Digital Microscope and the Celestron Handheld Digital Microscope Pro.

I'm leaning towards the latter because it looks to have a better camera on it, but the Amoeba looks "cooler" so for him that might be a plus.

Any suggestions or recommendations?

 

[Fenixgoon]

at the same cost, i'd pick the one that produces better images.

 

[UglyCasanova]

The Pro is $20 more. I think I'm going to end up getting that one if there aren't any recommendations of other brands.

 

[IronWing]

The Amoeba has built in transmitted light for looking at slides if that is important. You can buy sets of prefab slides for it. The Pro is a zoom scope which is a plus, particularly at low magnification. Personally, I'd go with the Pro with the bigger camera. I think looking at found objects and stuff around the house would be more interesting than looking at slides. You could rig up transmitted light for the Pro without too much difficulty. You can make your own slides if you have the patience and don't mind the risk of slicing your fingers off.

 

[Jeff7]

The Amoeba has built in transmitted light for looking at slides if that is important. You can buy sets of prefab slides for it. The Pro is a zoom scope which is a plus, particularly at low magnification. Personally, I'd go with the Pro with the bigger camera. I think looking at found objects and stuff around the house would be more interesting than looking at slides. You could rig up transmitted light for the Pro without too much difficulty. You can make your own slides if you have the patience and don't mind the risk of slicing your fingers off.

What was memorable for me, I think it was in 7th grade, was getting some water from a local pond, putting it in a jar with some hay and old grass for a few days, and then having a look at that water underneath a microscope.
There was quite a variety of small single-celled things in there, including one type that was particularly large for a cell. Darned if I can remember its name though. :\

 

[IronWing]

The Pro is $20 more. I think I'm going to end up getting that one if there aren't any recommendations of other brands.

If you're not set on digital and your son does have an interest in biology then the Brock Magiscope is worth looking at. We'd probably get one if we didn't already own three microscopes and a bunch of hand lenses. We might get one anyway. :biggrin:

 

[IronWing]

What was memorable for me, I think it was in 7th grade, was getting some water from a local pond, putting it in a jar with some hay and old grass for a few days, and then having a look at that water underneath a microscope.
There was quite a variety of small single-celled things in there, including one type that was particularly large for a cell. Darned if I can remember its name though. :\

Paramecium are pretty big. We bought one of these projector microscopes specifically to have pond creatures swimming across our walls. We ended up donating it to a nature center as there isn't a whole lot of pond water happening in Tucson.

 

[UglyCasanova]

The Amoeba has built in transmitted light for looking at slides if that is important. You can buy sets of prefab slides for it. The Pro is a zoom scope which is a plus, particularly at low magnification. Personally, I'd go with the Pro with the bigger camera. I think looking at found objects and stuff around the house would be more interesting than looking at slides. You could rig up transmitted light for the Pro without too much difficulty. You can make your own slides if you have the patience and don't mind the risk of slicing your fingers off.

Ok I'm new at this, what is transmitted light and the benefits of it? I doubt he will be doing much in the way of slides, especially since the magnifying power of these isn't all that great. I don't think he would be able to see anything in pond water with either of these...? It would be neat if so, but I think given the capabilities of them he will be looking at and taking pictures of bugs that he finds.

 

[IronWing]

Ok I'm new at this, what is transmitted light and the benefits of it? I doubt he will be doing much in the way of slides, especially since the magnifying power of these isn't all that great. I don't think he would be able to see anything in pond water with either of these...? It would be neat if so, but I think given the capabilities of them he will be looking at and taking pictures of bugs that he finds.

Transmitted light is light that shines up through a transparent/translucent specimen from the bottom. The Amoeba model has a light built into the base. The Pro and Amoeba both have incident light sources which shine light onto the specimen from above.

This is what pond water looks like at 200x. Keep in mind that with a ~$100 microscope you probably won't get the same clarity as I suspect the scope doesn't have a condenser for the light source. A condenser is a lens beneath the specimen that focuses the light onto the specimen, yielding a clearer image.

We use our low power microscope with incident light far more than the transmitted light scopes. There's just more to look at.

 

[IGBT]

what a great idea. much better then the usual mindless iCrap kids get now a days.

 

[Jeff7]

Paramecium are pretty big. We bought one of these projector microscopes specifically to have pond creatures swimming across our walls. We ended up donating it to a nature center as there isn't a whole lot of pond water happening in Tucson.

It wasn't one of those. It was almost like an elongated funnel, or a tube that narrowed along its length.
I'm fairly sure it was unicellular.

 

[IronWing]

It wasn't one of those. It was almost like an elongated funnel, or a tube that narrowed along its length.

Stentor?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AuYHsMsqv8

 

[Jeff7]

Stentor?

The name's.....I don't know if it's familiar or not. I came across a few images of that while trying to figure it out myself, but those photos do look familiar. That's probably it.
I remember that it was slightly blue, and just visible to the naked eye.

 

[disappoint]

I have this one. It has a 5mp sensor. The other one you showed only has 1.3Mp. I got mine from a local Microcenter for the same price as online retailers like Amazon. I like it, it works very well.

 

[disappoint]

Didinium eats a paramecium:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ7wv2LhynM

I did not take these videos.

 

[disappoint]

Amoeba vs. Stentor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcCvhYmjaXE

 

[KLin]

I have a celestron 44302 I bought in 2009. Its 2mp

They probably have updated models

 

[UglyCasanova]

I have this one. It has a 5mp sensor. The other one you showed only has 1.3Mp. I got mine from a local Microcenter for the same price as online retailers like Amazon. I like it, it works very well.

This is the one I'm thinking about picking up. I'm guessing it works well for bugs, rocks, etc..? Those would be things he would be interested in.

 

[disappoint]

This is the one I'm thinking about picking up. I'm guessing it works well for bugs, rocks, etc..? Those would be things he would be interested in.

Yes, you can even view diatoms in pond water if you want to, even though the light is from above or from the side.

It has 2 focal points. One is at ~20-30x and the other at ~200-300x magnification, depending on your monitor size. You can measure the actual magnification with the little specialty ruler that is included. Take a pic of the ruler, then measure the size on the screen and you can calculate the magnification. This also helps identify the size of the specimens you will be viewing later.

Also you can crop more with 5Mp than you can with 1.3Mp.

Keep in mind that at the higher magnification you will have a very shallow depth of field. Have fun!

 

[Ruptga]

Depending on how hands-on you two are, consider this

 

[IronWing]

Depending on how hands-on you two are, consider this

Cool beans!

 

[disappoint]

EPROM at ~20X mag: