Finally saying hello!

[starboy]

Greetings, all. Hope your new year is off to a good start. My name is Mark and my wife Vanessa and I live in Cleveland, OH. We have a son, Mike (28) who lives in Columbus and is an avid larper and dungeon master.

I have many hobbies and interests but my newest is microscopy. Others in no special order include writing guitar music, reading science fiction and fantasy, everything to do with science including paleontology and dinosaurs, telescopes and astronomy, birds and binoculars, photography (old dark room pro), painting, micro-controllers and electronics, fabricating my own mechanical and electronic contraptions, computers and software development, computer games, and probably a number of other things I'm forgetting at the moment. If you share any of my interests feel free to PM me any time.

I've been lurking here for over a month and I feel like I've already gotten to know some of you old timers! I've noticed you guys are a very friendly, open and hugely informative group of folks and I look forward to learning and contributing to your forum in the future.

After a great deal of research, both here and elsewhere, I finally bit the bullet and purchased my first scope. It's an AmScope trinocular compound microscope (model T610-IPL): http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0197J ... ge_o06_s00. The AmScope info page is here: http://www.amscope.com/bundled-microsco ... 1000x.html.

It comes with Kohler illumination, plan infinity corrected optics, 10x20 plan eyepieces, an Abbe condenser with slider slot and the head is switchable between eyepieces only and eyepieces+trinocular port for real-time imaging. And the head has an accessory filter slot which I plan to utilize for polarization. (When I used to do photography very heavily back in the '80s, I had explored macro photography of crystalline solutions (vitamin c, aspirin, etc.) using cross polarization, so I have some idea how cool that can be.)

Separate from the scope, I bought a 5 megapixel ToupCam USB3.0 CMOS Camera: http://www.touptek.com/product/showprod ... g=en&id=78. Does anyone have any experience with this camera?

Along with the scope I purchased the usual supplies and accessories (blank slides, cover slides, stains, immersion oil, pipettes, kimwipes, etc.) including a set of 200 prepared slides to practice on while getting up to speed.

The views are spectacular and extremely flat and evenly lit. I've only done brightfield so far but I've been reading all about other illumination methods (dark field, COI, Rheinberg, polarizing, etc.) and plan to take the DIY approach to exploring these other techniques. It was with exploration of all these options that I made my particular choice in this instrument.

One thing I'm having a problem with at the moment is getting the camera to not freeze up my Windows 7 machine when I try to use it in the USB 3 port. It works great in a USB 2 port but it's too slow for video capture. If anyone has any tips on drivers and troubleshooting USB 3 issues give me a holler.

Anyway, in the days to come I'll post some pictures of the new set up along with images of particularly interesting specimens down the line, once I get the imaging down.

[Crater Eddie]

Welcome to the forum! I see we share many interest, that's pretty cool.
Yes, USB 2 is really too slow for usable video. I have never had the spare $$$ to throw at a USB 3 capable camera, will be interested in what you learn.
CE

[lorez]

Welcome to the group. It looks as though you've purchased a pretty versatile microscope that should hold you until you contract the inevitable
"customupgradefever".

Luckily, it is not fatal, but may be chronic.

lorez

[JimT]

Welcome Mark. This is a great place to learn about this absorbing hobby. Looking forward to some of your images.

[einman]

Welcome! Once you get really involved just make sure our wife has access to your bank accounts, pension funds etc as she will not be seeing you much especially given all your other hobbies.

[charlie g]

Welcome,Mark! Charlie Guevara finger lakes/US good to hear from 'the buck eye state?'.

Your UPS area driver must truck interesting kit to your home!

[rnabholz]

Welcome aboard Mark.

Congratulations, it looks like you have made an investment in a highly capable instrument and accessories. Nothing left to do but dive in, but be sure to share your progress here.

Looking forward to watching your journey.

Rod

[KurtM]

^^^ What they all said. And we have a telescope show 'n' tell thread in the Misc section too, hint hint.

[gekko]

Welcome, Mark!