craven.fr (.ox.ac.uk)

I decided about a month ago to get a microscope, but the decision on which one to get was not taken lightly. I already knew a thing or two about the importance of quality optics from amateur astronomy (enthusiast photographers will already have the same insight). So I wasn't at risk of being suckered into a toy store rip-off.

On the other hand, this is just one hobby among a lot of others that I have, so I wasn't about to spend $6,000 on a microscope either! My primary interest is in protists, which means I'd be interested in specimens 10-50 µm in size; being able to zoom in close to view cellular nuclei and organelles would be a plus though. Still, I didn't need anything fancier than what I used in school. At 100x a small 10 µm protist would appear like 1 mm to the naked eye, getting up to 1000x would fill out the field a lot more but the quality (given what I'd be willing to pay) would be sub-par. I've since discovered this page that does a very good job of clarifying magnification requirements for various tasks.

I also decided right away that a good way to keep the price down would be to stick to a monocular microscope; I was already used to observing with one eye from my telescope, and the extra optics would be sure to drive up the price.

Armed with this general picture of what I was looking for, hunting around I found a German site, www.optical-systems.com, with a big catalog of serious microscopes, most of which were well beyond my price range. Looking at the link now, I see that I was very lucky as the microscope I bought is already out of stock! Anyway, the Bresser Erudit was listed as a best seller, and also had a number of accessories, which meant I could expand if needed later on, without having to buy a whole new microscope. Best of all, the scope was sold in a kit with everything I'd need to start right away: three eye pieces, a Barlow lens (all told that means I can view at 15 different magnification settings, from 20x to 1024x). It also came with five prepared slides and five empty slides, and best of all, a USB web-cam. Besides letting me post images on my blog, I'm hoping that by post-processing the images on the computer I'll be able to bring out more detail, without having to resort to the hassle of phase-contrast or staining. (Time will tell if that will play out in practice, though.) Also if I do get tired of looking through an eyepiece, I can just watch the image on screen. At €200, it was a deal for a respected German brand-name microscope with such a complete kit. (Compared to telescopes or prosumer camera lenses, microscopes are cheap.)

And when the thing arrived I was blown away: look at what a solid case this thing comes in! No danger of shipping damage here! The scope is as solid as I had hoped, and even has excellent fine-tuning controls for moving a specimen; even at 400x I was able to move up, down, left, and right without jerkiness.

In the USA, I believe that Meade distributes Bresser mircoscopes; judging from the photos on the Meade site the Erudit seems to be most like the Meade 9460, although the lens configurations are different.