Dissecting microscopes revisited

James Frelichowski butterflyamaryllis@yahoo.com
Sat, 01 Mar 2014 11:23:50 PST
Jealous, lol.  Great find!!




On Saturday, March 1, 2014 12:17 PM, Ellen Hornig <hornig@oswego.edu> wrote:
  
After I asked the list a while back for advice about dissecting
microscopes, I ventured onto eBay and made an astounding catch: an
Accu-Scope 3076 trinocular microscope with zoom, detachable 2x objective
lens, and 10x and 20x eyepieces, with a boom stand, a Micrometrics 318
digital camera, and a Dolan-Jenner Fiber-Lite M1-150 fiber-optic
illuminator (with both a ring light and dual gooseneck cables), all for
$400, which was ridiculously low.  The seller did not know what they had
(they had bought it from an industrial lab that closed), and so I want
particularly to thank Kathleen Sayce for looking at the listing for me and
telling me which questions I needed to ask, and why. She's a born teacher -
she picked up perfectly on how little I knew about where to even start, and
took it from there.  Thanks, Kathleen!

Over the course of two days I have set it all up, downloaded manuals for
everything and software for the camera (thank goodness for the Internet),
and started to play.  I haven't yet had a chance to botanize (20" of snow
on the ground), but I have found the most amazing peripheral benefit in
just having the microscope sitting here at my elbow beside my desk: it's
made a kid of me again.  I have a lot of natural objets strewn about the
house: stones, shells, feathers, etc; and I find myself repeatedly grabbing
some new thing and putting it under the microscope for inspection.  I would
highly recommend this to anyone suffering from cabin fever.  You will
remember how beautiful nature is, and what a joy it is to contemplate it
with no other motive than to enjoy its beauty.

And that's why I wrote: to encourage everyone to get themselves a stereo
microscope and see the world anew.  Do it!

Ellen
-- 
Ellen Hornig
212 Grafton St
Shrewsbury MA 01545




More information about the pbs mailing list