Minature Aquarium:

[Rodney]

I sometimes use this thick glass low profile candle holder for a small aquarium. The weight of it keeps it in place for manipulation of pond life etc. while viewing. Fits very easy under my stereo scope and works with my compound microscopes fitted with low powered short objectives.

Rodney

[JimT]

How thick is it that it can fit on a compound microscope?

[Rodney]

With the short objectives on this scope, works just fine. I mostly use it for scanning under the stereo scope. Size is .75 inches by 2.5.

Rodney

[cpsTN]

Cool. I've done this with 2L bottle caps, but they don't hold nearly as much as yours.

[mrsonchus]

I've used similar little candle-glasses too! They are great under the stereo!
Good to see you back with us Rodney!

[zzffnn]

Lab petri dishes or tissue culture flasks may work even better, as they have much thinner bottom (around 1-1.5mm). I used them as micro "aquarium" container routinely.

With smaller petri dishes or culture flasks, you can even move them with stage's slide clamp. Those should work for most objectives (I tried up to NA 0.9 and it worked fine with dipping w/o cover slip), maybe except for high NA oil objectives.

You can buy a few of those cheaply from eBay.

[einman]

I use Falcon 35mm X 10MM petri dishes #1008. They fit perfectly under the stereoscope. I view live specimens with the lid with no distortion as they are quite clear. I have a custom made adapter for my Olympus IM just for them.

In addition they fit easily under a compound low mag objective.

I purchase them off E-bay. They can be re-used as long as you clean them with lens paper only as they are scratched quite easily.

Here is one such listing on E-bay: eBay item number:221949475898