LaPaz Home Learning

I promised I would write a little review of our new microscope once we tried it out, for those interested.

Let me give you a little background first.

We already have an excellent binocular (dissecting) scope and a really nice 40X field scope, so what we needed was a good compound scope, powerful enough to look at cells and protists, etc.
Now, we have in the past fooled around with some cheap toy-store microscopes that promise high magnification (1000X) at low price. These things, however, tend to be very frustrating to use, especially for children. The optical quality is low, the controls are fiddly, the light source is pathetic, and generally you either can’t see your object, or cannot focus in on it properly. They have without fail ended up stuffed in a closet and never used. So, I want to recommend to everyone to avoid these types of microscopes.

I knew that we needed something with high quality optics that was well made and with magnification up to 400X. Though I would love 1000X,  to purchase a good quality scope at that magnification would take us out of our price range of under 200 dollars. And since 1000X is really not necessary for our purposes, I decided I should get the best quality 400X scope I could afford, sacrificing higher magnification for better quality and ease of use.
I looked around a bit at various suppliers until I found what seemed the best fit for us. I am familiar with the brand National, since that is the brand of our dissecting scope (on permanent loan from the university). It has been a wonderful workhorse of a scope, with high quality mechanics and optics, sturdy and easy for the kids to use, so I was pleased to find a National compound scope, 400X, in our price range from Home Science tools. The one I got is advertised as the Advanced Microscope and they sell it for $189.00. I got mine for $169.00 on sale, but would have gladly paid the extra twenty if it had not been on sale. I have to admit, however, I DID NOT do any price comparison shopping, so you may or may not be able to find it cheaper elsewhere. I knew when I saw it I wanted to order from this company as I had heard good things about them and their service. I am glad to have done business with them as my scope and the rest of my order were here within about a week.

So, about the scope: It is aNational model 131 with 4, 10, and 40X achromatic DIN objectives, parfocal and parcentered. There is a 360 degree rotating 10X widefield eyepiece, for combined magnifications of 40X, 100X and 400X. What this means is that the optics are excellent with large, crisp images. Switching between objectives is smooth and easy with a nice click stop. Focusing is easy with seperate coarse and fine focus knobs that are sensitive, but not overly so. It has a 5-hole disk diaphragm that is easy to use, and 20 watt tungsten illumination, which provides adequate light. (They also offer the same scope with fluorescent illumination for a little more money. This is good if you plan on looking at live critters for any length of time as there is less heat generated. Otherwise, tungsten is fine) The fixed stage and clips are sturdy and large. The clips are easy enough for Superboy to manipulate well.

Anyway, to test it out I looked at several slides.

Bacteria, as I suspected, at 4ooX were a bit small for easy viewing, but I could make out the shapes fine since the image was so crisp.

Paramecium: At 400X they filled about 3/4 the diameter of the field, with cilia just visible.

Euglena: smaller, but that is to be expected. Flagella were hard to resolve, but, again, that is typical of prepared slides of Euglena. Live ones are much nicer and easier to see the flagella.

Diatoms: details of the tests are clearly visible. Lovely to look at!

Earthworm cross section: Fills the entire field at 100X. Textbook perfect image.

Human skin with hair: Super. Plenty of detail visible at all magnifications.

I looked at a lot of other slides, but you get the idea. I am very pleased with both the optics and the mechanics. It is sturdy enough to last a good long time with proper care and I see no plastic parts. The light source is strong and steady,  with bulb replacement cost at about 6 dollars.

For the price range, I rate it an A.

I hope that helps someone.

btw: the slide set I ordered is this one. Very nice set, good quality mounts.