Light Microscopy: Function and Utility 

You still use it?

Nope.@@nyxdausen4552

Impress your TA and do Kohler illumination.

planning more physics now! hoping to do more math too

This only works if the objective is rated for oil immersion. Not all lenses are the same. Even different oils have different indexes of refraction, and certain oils are designed to work with certain lenses. So you might need to check the specs to see which oil is right for you. Also not all 100x lenses are oil immersion and using oil on a non oil lens can mess it up pretty bad. Not using oil on an oil immersion lens will not ruin the lens, but give you a terrible hazy image.

Buy a confocal. Leica makes good ones. You can get one pretty cheap...less than $100,000 if you spec it out right.

@@davyc412 over my budget. I'm trying to get the biggest bang for my buck around 250 dollars.

​@@UncleSarkis Okay the confocal thing was a joke. In all seriousness though, put serious consideration into getting a used scope from a good brand like Leica, Nikon, Olympus, or Zeiss (they usually have the best optics), and if you just want a serious good scope, avoid bells and whistles like external screens or displays. All of those bells and whistles end up on two types of microscopes. (1) the super cheap stuff people end up buying for their kids from Walmart that never get used and work like garbage, and (2) the $10,000 + scopes that end up getting used in research labs. the best optical bang for your buck is usually from the simplest of scopes where your money goes into quality optics. If the scope also has removable and interchangeable objectives, that's usually an okay sign that those objectives are pretty good. If the objectives have 160/ , 170/ ,or ∞/ engraved on the side that's also a decent sign that you might be dealing with quality optics, if they also have Nikon, Olympus, Zeiss or Leica engraved on the side, that's also a really good sign you are probably dealing with quality optics. If you have a local university with a biology department, email them and see if they are throwing anything away. A few years ago, in the building I worked in, they were throwing away like 20-30 old Zeiss microscopes from the teaching labs that were super old (they looked like they were from the 60s) that were just taking up space in the teaching labs because nobody knew what to do with them. They ended up on a cart in the hallway with a "for free" sign. The thing is they don't look fancy at all, they look something you might find at a garage sale, its basically a massive black chunk of iron with an eyepiece, condenser, and objective turret, but the optics will blow anything out of the water that you could find new in store today for less than 250 bucks. I ended up picking through them and taking around 10 of them, one for myself and donated the rest to a school in my area.

Also, if you want to take pictures, having a scope with camera mount or at the very least a removable eyepiece is a must. you can get adaptors for stuff like Canon and Nikon DSLRS that will fit a microscope. They are a little finicky to figure out what you need, and to get set up correctly with the focusing distance, but they work really well once they are set up. We have a massive Zeiss trinocular scope in the lab that we use for basic phase contrast and its got just a plain old Canon Rebel T3i mounted on the top to take pictures with.

@@davyc412 I really appreciate the information. I'm going to try the University route first to see if I can get a timeless tool like you got.

He wouldn't know so much about the science stuff otherwise

he is the only reason I come to RU-vid. I'm watching almost all of his videos.

uh yeah. He's a scientist...?

Huh after 2 years

lol

No one cares

@@Leoliat And no one cares about your comment too .