MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

A lot depends on whether you will be carrying this about by yourself (and avoid dropping or tossing it from, say, a truck liftgate) -- or intend to hand it off to Fed Ex Ground paid-by-the-second drivers, airport baggage handlers, and the like. There are dozens of affordable alternatives in the firs...

I took a look at eBay.au and see what you mean, Cliff. There's not much available and the shipping cost for the US-listed ones is very high. One possible avenue would be to look for a bare stand in Australia (the heavy and bulky part) and keep an eye out for objectives and eyepieces from elsewhere. ...

JWWW -- nicely done and illlustrated - thanks for the post.

Which of the quarter wave plates did you choose (glass high performance?) and are you happy with it? Also curious if you went larger than 50mm and the cost?

Bruce, you're likely referring to the pointer available in some AO teaching heads. It allows an instructor to place an arrow at some point of interest in the visual field; and requires a cord and an external power supply to light it up. P.S. Neeley's "Xmission" website will likely have documentation.

If the Nikon is that far out, it's because it's the wrong generation of objective. If you focus your 100x or 40x objective on a slide - and measure the distance from the lens turret to the slide, the newer finite objectives (DIN standard) will be around 45mm. Just the distance from the shoulder of a...

Cliff, FWIW, you can buy parfocal shims to get the objectives on a turret all at about the same focus. These are basically thin washers ranging (US) from about .002 up in thousandths increments. It's rare to find a mix of different objectives parfocal, even if they are all 45mm (DIN standard) parfoc...

Cliff, the point about the Aussie sellers on eBay is that you could probably contact them directly. "Micrographix" in particular has been a helpful and trusted source. If you're looking for phase contrast, you might also consider a used Zeiss "Standard" as well as Olympus BH2 and Nikon Labophot and ...

Cliff, there are at least a couple of Australians who sell on US eBay - at least one with reasonable prices. Perhaps one of them can help you find a good used scope?

You'd be paying a premium for the Olympus name. If buying new, I'd suggest something like the Motic equivalent, shipped from China.

JWW - I'm not sure how much, if anything, is common in photo relay lenses between Leica DM systems and your Polylite. That said, the Leica's generally use an 8x (or sometimes 10x) photo relay lens (with the proper corrections) combined with a .32x lens further up in the optical train near a full fra...

Depending on your location, there's likely a microscope group or a respected hobbyist willing to lend you a hand. There are dozens of potentially excellent microscopes in your upper price range. Along with Olympus BX models, I'd include Nikon Eclipse and Leica DMLB or DM2000 and above. I'm less keen...

Dang, JWW. Now I have Polylite envy . . .

For less than the price of that used $2500 Olympus CX microscope (from a dealer?), you might look for a used Olympus BX in excellent condition, It would be a more expandable microscope, hold its value better, and possibly be equipped with significantly better plan fluorite objectives or other featur...

Your titles always bring a smile, Don. And, who knew . . . it's the Brock Purdy of vegetables. Drafted last into the shopping cart, but a star leading the way under the microscope. Sadly, though, just missing winning this year's Super Salad Bowl.

The cap will help you get a quicker sale, towards the higher end of the range. As Alexander says, the value is in the condenser - which you might sell separately.

Nice looking scope. It does have the Heine condenser, missing it's top oil lens, as noted above. The dry darkfield condenser is also useful. Depending upon the objectives (plan? phase? fluorite? apo?), I'd think it would be worth $700-800 plus or minus to the right buyer; possibly to someone here. Y...

Pretty much. I used an M25 thin spacer and a tube cut to CFI60 parfocal length, epoxied to the Jena objective. I've just used it casually for smears and it looks, visually, OK. Haven't taken photos or done any serious comparisons to see how the corners hold up. I'd think, for APS-C, they'd be decent...

FWIW, I adapted a Jena GF infinity zero cover 50x to Nikon infinity (25mm thread, 60mm parfocal). It does an OK job with smears (blood, chemical crystals, etc.) and no cover slip.

Hi did have a 50mm or so wave filter, a while back. Techno is a good and reliable seller IMO, but in this case the wave filter had a significant defect - a sort of square (machine-made) defect that showed up when imaged between polars.

That's interesting, Saul - crystals that mostly walk straight and narrow.

Beautiful stages and nice work on those sliders. It might be possible to make up a sort of 60 mm OD blackened washer with about a 55 mm ID. Stretch the Edmund material flat with tape along the edges at room temperature, put a coat of plastic-metal adhering adhesive on one side of the washer (2.5mm o...

If you want a 1/4 wave plate purely for visual effects - and not an exact wavelength determination - there are a number of DIY alternatives. Several have been mentioned in past posts: layers of clear packing tape, CD covers, a circular polarizer oriented with the wave plate in the direction you need...

Scoper, can we assume you already have a microscope rather than just questions about them? If so, what do you want to do that's proving impossible with the scope you've already learned to drive? The BH2 is a fine microscope - reliable, well documented, and with myriad relatively affordable options. ...

The DIC nosepiece requires a bit more clearance at the back side - toward the "arm" of the stand. The 50i doesn't have this. Judging by photos, the Ci-L probably doesn't. For the E400 I'm pretty sure Nikon added flanges purely to prevent fitting an interchangeable receiver and a DIC nosepiece. In ad...

Assuming your Motic biology microscope has infinity corrections, you might look for a used Olympus 10x Plan Fluor or Plan Apo objective. Up to 10x, the M Plan (metallurgical and no cover slip corrections) should be fine - and perhaps a bit less expensive.

As far as I can tell, there are three issues in using one of Nikon's less expensive Eclipse microscopes with transmitted DIC: 1) You need to be able to fit a DIC interchangeable nosepiece. It doesn't look like the Ci-L has either the interchangeable nosepiece fitting, nor the clearance, and probably...

You probably know this, but the area of exposed autotransformer coils and the (usually) carbon brush that sweeps through it are often oxidized in old units. That might also require attention.

Sjtepo, it looks like the surgery was a success, bringing back Mr. Apo from the dead.

stjepo wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 14, 2024 1:09 pm

In the recovery room

Now, that's funny. My only concern, Stjepo, is that with such an attentive and attractive nurse, Mr. Apo is likely to linger in intensive care.

1x is standard and all that many ever need. The objective may be an achromat, a better and desirable plan achromat, or possibly even better plan apo. There's usually a tradeoff between working distance and resolution. A Plan Achromat might be the sweet spot in terms of excellent performance at reaso...

Erik, The M8 has a wider zoom range and is generally considered more valuable. However, both are excellent stereo microscopes. Your choice probably comes down to the quality of objective that is present, the condition, and perhaps extra features such as a transilluminated stage. Given that a presume...