I took up a new hobby. I bought microscopes from ShopGoodwill.com and some prepared slides from Amazon. I was happy to be able to take some pictures with my cellphone using my Celestron NexYZ adapter. The first foray was easier and more rewarding than my attempts at astrophotography. In both fields, my primary interest is in verifying for myself what I read in books. I also benefit from the discovery or revelation of facts not perceived in daily life.
Based on my experience in astronomy, I sought to avoid early mistakes by finding a discussion board that I could rely on and participate in. The astronomy board Cloudy Nights has a forum for microscopy, "Cloudy Days." There, I found a recommendation for Oliver Kim's Microbe Hunter website (here), YouTube videos, and discussion board (forum).
Kim has an MSc in microbiology and teaches high school biology. I found his narratives interesting, informative, and objective. Some others have complained that he is salesman for his favorite brands. I have not found that so. He does insist that quality and price are on curves and that the average person can find a good-enough microscope for a few hundred dollars or less. I found these two for under $75 each with shipping and handling. (I searched for 1-cent shipping and Buy Now versus bidding.) I still hold to my longterm goal of buying a Zeiss university classroom instrument for about $1000 when the time comes for me to upgrade. That will depend on my learning curve.
I also bought books, of course. I have an instructor's edition for a survey class in microbiology, a couple of lab manuals, and two handbooks on microscopes.
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| Onion rind |
Picking up where I left off 60 years ago, I found vegetables a lot easier to work with. The sets of prepared slides were not expensive and for that reason were also not carefully prepared. I am not big on bugs, but I could do (and have done) a better job. The specimens are mashed and tangled. So, the next step will be to buy slides, slips, and mounting fluid. (I confess to being a little shakier now than I was at 12 years of age and I think that I can focus past the intentional tremor.)
I do appreciate the unity of life. One of the prepared slides is "Lily Ovary." Miss Lily's ovary speaks to the astounding multifarious expressions in complicated matter since the invention of sexual dimorphism. A science fiction story could consider a watery world in which all of the single cells share communication and thereby constitute a self-aware intelligence. The extent to which the cloned daughters would vary could be a plot element if not the story line. How is difference perceived--and is it accepted--when just about everyone is almost exactly alike?
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| BAMBOO |
Be that as it may, in the mean time, my new toys need cleaning. I have Zeiss fluid and other tools. However, I hesitate to disassemble the oculars and objectives. When I started in astronomy, I had a Celestron 130-mm (4.25-inch) Newtonian reflector. It came with a 20-mm and a 10-mm oculars. A little later, I bought the Celestron Lens-and-Filter Kit that I saw several others with at my first star party. I could not get a filter to screw into the bottom of the 20-mm, so I unscrewed the top--and was rewarded with a handful of small glass lenses. Fortunately, it is a known problem and Celestron has a page on their website on how to put it back together. But it was never the same. I got the faces right, but the axial rotation was off. They are supposed to be circles, of course, but at that level, they are not perfect circles and a little bit makes a difference. So, I have to decide whether and to what extend I want to pay for the lessons being presented here.
That also impacts another toy, truly a toy, an Educsope. It cost less than $15 from Goodwill and came with a kit of tools and slides. But the stage will not stay up. From an old Tasco microscope set that a neighbor gave me some years ago, I already know this to be a problem with cheap microscopes that kids use. I can take it apart easily. Whether I can clean and tighten the rack and pinion is another question entirely. I actually did that with the Tasco. It works better now. The Eduscope is all plastic and does not hold much promise.
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