I've just re-discovered the delights of microscopy. Cliche, I know, but it's another world! Some of it would be frightening if we could see it with naked eyes but much is beautiful.

	Prior ZoomMaster Stereo This provides magnification of between x10 and x120, depending on which eye-pieces (x10 or x20) and which objective (x1 or x1.5) we have fitted. The zoom is 1:4. Illumination from above or below. The image is the right way up, making it easy to manipulate specimens. On the camera port is our JVC TK-C621EG camera, mains powered, which connects to a video capture card in the PC by co-ax cable. A x0.4 C-mount adapter links the camera to the microscope. Prior Scientific Instruments Ltd are based in Fulbourn, near Cambridge.
This little fellow is a Polish made pocket microscope by PZO and gives magnification of x16 and x32. The field of view is only about 1mm wide at x32 but the image is very clear.	Click for larger image (53k .jpg file)
	We also have a Prior compound microscope, somewhat older and fitted with a rag-bag of objectives (x4, x10 and x40). The sub-stage condenser has an iris diaphragm and a filter carrier. If we put a patch-stop in the filter carrier we can use dark-field illumination, which is really good for making otherwise rather colourless transparent specimens stand out clearly. Illumination by a bright white LED 5mm diameter has been very successful - plenty of light and almost no heat. Tony Dutton of Quekett Microscopical Club introduced me to the idea. LEDs are available from Farnell Electronic Components Ltd.

For our efforts at taking photos of things seen through the microscope see the photomicrography page.