Microscopy

Factual Questions
1

Ok, so the kid knows how to grow “germs” in a petri dish.

Now he wonders what these “germs” look like. He knows damn well what the colonies look like.

What I want is a good microscope. Not that good, but better than the peice of crap we used in grade school.

Iv’e blown off the “toy store” models and begun looking on the web.

we are looking at a 150 buck model that promises 10x eyepeice and 40x optics max. this is from a reputable company.

I wanna know, how do I get max “bang from buck”, at what price does magnifcation=value

2

If you want to look at individual bacteria I think the 400X $150 model is still not good enough (unfortunately). I think it will be good enough to seelarge single celled organisms like paramecium and should be fine for rotifers and nematodes. For bacteria I think you will need closer to a 1000X using an oil immersion lens which gets pretty steep in cost. I think our school bought cheapo ones at about $800 a pop.
Remember also that large magnification isn’t necessarily what you want. You want high resolving power which is in the quality of the optics. A $400 1000X microscope is crap compared to a $1000 400X microscope.

3

I agree with sigene… x400 is not really going to be enought to resolve bacteria as anything other that little dots.
If you want to see shapes (rods, flagellae etc) then x1000 oil immersion sounds like your best bet.
Sadly, they don’t come cheap. Colleges/universities usually sell their old ones when they get new ones, so you might be able to get hold of one cheaply that way.