Your earliest memories and experiences with microscopes?

[zondar]

Hello All,

Children born of the Apollo space age with an inclination towards science, as I was, all wanted a microscope, a telescope and a chemistry set.

My microscope was by Lafeyette Radio Electronics. It was a lower-end model, in black-painted cast iron, with four objectives and no fine focus knob. It came in a case with a small kit of slides and other accessories, and I spent many hours using it.

Despite it being my pride and joy, I was jealous of several of my neighbors, who all had more futuristic-looking models sporting fantastically-higher magnifications. One day, we all got together to compare images from them. In the end, they all reluctantly agreed that mine was head-and-shoulders above theirs.

One of the objectives required oil, but I used it dry (which was virtually useless). The slim instruction manual discussed using oil, and one day I set my mind to finally trying that. Unfortunately, my kid-brain confused oil with Canada balsam (or whatever the included mountant was). As I was beginning to dip the objective in, a nagging feeling crept up on me that this was all wrong, and I stopped when only the edge of the objective's glass was in it. The result was still catastrophic, and I felt great shame over my mistake!

At school, we were once given the opportunity to observe Paramecium under their microscopes. The Paramecium were so large, and my youthful near vision was so sharp, that I could see them with my naked eye. My class partner didn't believe me, and so I showed that I could position a paramecium straight under the objective using only my naked eye. Despite successfully doing so, he still didn't believe me.

My father had an 8mm motion picture camera, and for a science-class project I managed to get a blurry and badly-skewed image through the ocular. I captured some creatures from the local pond with it. Film and processing was very expensive, though, and to make the most of it (so I thought) I filmed it at half speed, which when projected meant twice normal speed. This was a mistake, since the creatures were moving too fast for that - something I only found out after development. So between the speed and the lack of alignment, the result was not terribly impressive. To make matters worse, another student turned up with stunning professional micro-photographs that "he" made, totally overshadowing my own attempt. Grr!

My childhood microscope was lost to time. I wish I could be certain which model it was so I could hunt one down again. Alas, I'll have to be satisfied with the vastly better one that I just ordered.

What are some of your earliest memories of microscopes?

[apochronaut]

Slurping up Paramoecium Caudatum and Amoeba Proteus singly with an eyedropper, to put on a slide. It became a sort of spectator sport.

[Alexander]

Children born of the Apollo space age with an inclination towards science, as I was, all wanted a microscope, a telescope and a chemistry set.

Never wanted a telescope but hat a microscope and a lot of chemistry stuff.

Many of the experiments I did, would be considered a criminal offense today. As many of my age I successfully made picric acid but failed to make TNT.

The microscope I had was very basic but I could not afford anything better than that. My limited money went into chemicals.

[PeteM]

Although its exact location on a chromosome remains elusive, I seem to have been born with the tool gene - playing with them from the earliest age. My Mom got a teaching degree before WWII and an engineering degree during it. My parents started a family after dad returned from WWII, living on campus at Penn State. While finishing his industrial engineering degree and working part-time, Dad would open up his toolbox upon returning evenings for me to play with. Mom half-seriously said I learned to say "driver" (screwdriver) before "mama."

One Grandparent had a self-built summer home with cool junk for my brother, cousins, and I to play with. We built boats and forts, pulled corn from the huge garden, and unsuccessfully hunted rabbits with a bow and arrow. The other Grandfater owned an auto garage, where I apparently lugged around the biggest tools I could find. My first microscope came to me from my Grandmother's father - a beautiful old brass instrument from the 1880s - along with a painstakingly made chest with inserts for tools, chemicals, slides, and more. Old Turkish cigarette boxes held many of the samples.

Scope work gave way to electrical work (we built a telegraph between houses in the fourth grade). In sixth grade, Dad came home with several cartons of chemicals donated to the high school and judged too dangerous for them. So, like Alexander, it was a tug-of-war between curiosity and disaster. One thing I learned (it should have been perfectly obvious, even to a kid) was not to attempt a borax bead test on any chemical with a name ending in peroxide. We didn't get to TNT either, though, like many kids our age, certainly learned how to power a rocket.

A return to microscopy came late in age. Multiple doctors assured me I was about to die of cancer. Turns out, I'm happily living past my expiration date. My "Micronaut" program was chosen as a fun way to give back and create some curiosity and determination for a next generation of kids -- much as I was so lucky to have had supported by my parents and extended family along the way.

[Frankiev]

My very earliest memories are of what was really a toy microscope given to me as a Christmas present almost 70 years ago. It gave very poor images but sparked my interest. Then a few years later I came across a beautiful microscope made by R Winkel of Gottingen in 1923. The shop owner agreed to let me pay it off as I aquired the money from weekend jobs and it was many months before I had paid off the grand sum of £25. I still remember the absolute joy when I made the final payment and took it home on Christmas Eve of 1963.
It’s still a pleasure to look at and handle even though the microscope I now use most is an Olympus IMT2 or a Leitz Wetzlar Dialux.