Anyone know what the biggest 'n-tuple' nosepiece available is?

[Scarodactyl]

Microscope companies often brag about having the biggest zoom ratio, highest resolution, lowest parfocal mag, etc. But I have found this question a bit hard to answer via quick googlin': who provides the nosepiece with the most objective slots? Heptuple ones are fairly well known from some brands. I think I have seen one octuple one offered for sale, maybe it was a Leica? Anyone offer a *checks notes* nonuple or decuple? It seems like it would get unmanageable at some point.
Of course there are specialized horizontal magazines for wafer inspection, but for the purpose of this thread I will consider them 'cheating'.

[dtsh]

Sorry I have nothing useful to add, but decuple in regard to a microscope nose fills my mind with terrible imagery of damaged objectives as the nose and objectives tumbles to the floor...
6 is the most I have noticed, so you're already aware of more than I am.

[MicroBob]

There was a guy in Germany doing some kind of questionable research stuff. He had at least one microscope with 10 or 12 nosepiece seats, probably a one of special design. The microscope turned up on ebay at one point of time. The number of seats in the nosepiece apparently was not able to put his research on a better basis though.

[PeteM]

Most I've had is 7 seats on a Leica DMRB or Reichert Polyvar.

What proves more practical and affordable are interchangeable nosepieces. Easy to switch in and out. One set for oil immersion. Another dry. Another phase contrast, One cheap enough objectives you're OK having kids use it. Another prize Apos, Maybe convert a stand (change objectives and head) to infinity and finite and back. And so on.

Olympus BHT, BHS, and BX models beyond BX40 (or with an adapter) make this easy. Nikon is in the same league with its Optiphot and higher end Eclipse models - I find it ever so slightly less convenient a design in the Optiphot (round dovetail) and equivalent to BX in the Eclipse era. Zeiss nosepieces take (me) a tiny bit longer to swap in their Standard 18, WL, etc. models - probably mainly because I'm more used to the others.

[Charles]

Zeiss also has a seven objective turret for both the 160mm TL series scopes such as the Standard 18/WL and the Photomicroscope/Universals.

[Scarodactyl]

What proves more practical and affordable are interchangeable nosepieces.

Very true--there's usually a more practical solution for these things. On high end stereo microscopes interchangeable objectives on a turret let you easily multiply the magnification range and make a lot more sense optically, but it's ever so slightly more inconvenient than having a higher zoom ratio. So you get Zeiss with their 20:1, followed by Leica with their 20.5:1 and then Nikon with their 25:1 flagship stereo microscopes because moar is better, marketingwise. I guess it's interesting that they really don't seem to have done similar things with their nosepieces. And I'll admit, I'd love to have more than 5 on my scope, if only because I'm a bit terrified of dropping a nosepiece loaded with all my favorite lenses.

[PeteM]

My worst "oops" - thankfully none of them yet fatal - have been from trying to unscrew an objective from a fixed nosepiece, to make room for another. Several have dropped to the (thankfully carpeted) floor. Or, alternately, trying to screw one in blind.

These days I have a few drawers loaded with objective sets. I've yet to drop a turret - it's pretty secure to move them out of their containers and on to a scope. And it is far easier and safer to load up a turret with objectives with a bare turret sitting upside down on a bench. For my use -- which involves checking out a lot of objectives before putting them on a scope for one of our "Micronauts"-- having at least a few scopes with interchangeable turrets is super helpful.

Also useful for anyone that hopes to use a single stand for a variety of methods (brightfield, phase, dry vs. oil, reflected, Hoffman, etc.)

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