My eight year old boy has this week been banging on about how he no longer wants an iPod for his birthday, but would rather a microscope. I am finding it hard to think of good reasons why I should not follow through with his plan. What is youse peoples idea of a good microscope for that age? Optical or USB digital? Mono or Stereo? Other stuff that I haven’t thought of or other stuff that I haven’t thought of…

My only advice is not to spend too much attention on how great the magnification is. We had one in pur family when I was a kid (optical of course, USB had yet to be invented). My recollection is that I could only ever focus it at the lowest choice of magnification. The higher choices I found impossible to use, even when I was in my early teens.

The other thing I remember is my eyelashes getting in the way. Have to learn a technique for looking through the eye -piece for any length of time.

FYI.

Universitys are regularly throwing these things out.

Go to one of their garage sales…

You need to think about what he’s likely to want to look at.

Given his age, I can’t recommend a stereo compound unit unless you have way more money than sense – in which case, can you buy me a microscope too? :)

The USB units are surprisingly good for their price but are best suited to focusing on a fixed plane. The one I have will only work with Windows XP despite the instructions suggesting otherwise – but what do you expect for $70?

The cheap monocular compounds you can buy in toy shops are pretty much just toys. You can use them to look at largish cells such as onion but don’t expect him to find too much that’s interesting.

I’d be looking out for a second hand stereo dissecting scope. It’s still a lot of money to spend on and eight year old though.

if he’s going to just look at any old thing under the scope then just get a cheap one

a microscope that’s expensive is only worth buying if you are going to dissect and prepare (stain) the sample properly.

Mr Ironic said:

FYI.

Universitys are regularly throwing these things out.

Go to one of their garage sales…

You must have rich universities in your part of the world.

A quick google has found stuff like

http://www.ozscopes.com.au/celestron-handheld-digital-microscope.html

http://www.ozscopes.com.au/celestron-microscope-digital-kit.html

http://www.ozscopes.com.au/optex-xsp91-07e-led-monocular-biological-microscope.html

http://aunet.com.au/nikon_stereo_zoom_microscope_smz445.htm

There’s some quite good units available on ebay these days.

You must have rich universities in your part of the world.
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Well if you don’t spend your budget… you lose it.

>>My recollection is ……<<

Don’t forget breaking the glass slide with the lens mounting by getting too close….much too close!

Australian Geographic seem to have a selection for kids. Do you have one of their shops near you?

buffy said:

Australian Geographic seem to have a selection for kids. Do you have one of their shops near you?

Yes, but when I looked at the online shop, the section titled “Telescopes and Microscopes” was a bit misleading…

http://shop.nationalgeographic.com/ngs/category/gear-%26-gadgets/telescopes-and-microscopes?categoryLevelId=A075

Try my Google search….the first two are for children:

http://www.google.com.au/#sclient=psy-ab&q=microscope+for+children+Australia&oq=microscope+for+children+Australia&gs_l=hp.3..0i22i10i30j0i22i30l2.1837.9346.0.9569.35.33.1.1.1.3.701.9553.2-23j7j1j0j1.32.0….0…1c.1.23.psy-ab..4.31.8159.I8YeF3Nb1rY&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.49967636,d.dGI&fp=ac0244251941877d&biw=1024&bih=584

We bought our son a microscope – he lost interest fairly soon. unlike his ipod….. (he bought his ipod by busking – and now uses the ipod as a backing)

To see things greater than x10 or x20 magnification (binocular) you need reasonable optics otherwise they are not worth looking at. I would imagine pond life would be interesting for a youngster, not microbes, so around x50 maximum in a mono lens should get you something of reasonable quality and still be quite useful, even lower magnification will open up new worlds. Looking at invertebrates on a x10 binocular is pretty impressive, so my advice is to get something useful and forget about high magnification and the use of slides. If he likes it, better quality scopes can be got later once he knows his area of interest.

I started off on a very cheap Russian binocular sold by a Field Naturalist Club, which kept me amused for years.