New Scope Swift 380T

[Latvia]

HI my new scope arrived today a Swift 380T.I find it very hard to focus on any subject that is higher than 4X or 10X times nothing seems to be in focus,I was expecting to see lots with this new scope but find it very hard to see anything at higher magnitude any Idea why this might be cheers Stephen.

[apochronaut]

Difficulty obtaining focus with higher magnifications is usually due to something blocking the objective from moving into it's focal range.
This could be because there is an adjustable focus stop, a safety mechanism designed to stop the user from over focusing and driving the objective into the slide. It may be set too high.
Another possibility is that the slide is too thick. As the N.A. goes up and usually anything over about .45, the objective focuses to a fraction of a mm above the slide. 40X objectives have working distances of usually less than .5mm so have difficulty focusing on very thick subjects.

[DonSchaeffer]

Make sure you don't have the slide upside down (facing downward). I made that mistake several times.

[BramHuntingNematodes]

Yeah with a 40x youre nearly touching the slide with the objective, and it's a very common student mistake to plow through the slide while focusing, which is why the mechanical stops are sometimes put in. Were talking about fractions of millimeters so they are easy to juggle out of position. I have taken down all these stops for convenience when using a Mish mash of cobbled together components so best practice with a 40x that way is to look at the stage from the side, rack the focus so that the 40x is as close as you dare to the coverslip, then proceed to look through the eyepieces and slowly rack upward until focus is acheived

[micro]

Might have too much water on the slide