Thursday, August 24, 2006

New microscope

I am pleased to announce the school's acquisition of a very fine Zeiss
stereomicroscope
. This low-magnification (16x-40x) instrument nicely complements the compound (high-power) ( 40x-400x) microscope we already have. The new scope is ideal for examining bugs, flowers, dirt, shoelaces, rocks, jewelry, and - - well - - just about anything. You don't have to prepare a slide: you just plop the specimen in the viewfinder and off you go!

I took this picture (head of a cicada) through the microscope. When you look into the microscope you can actually see the many facets of the insect's compound eye, but the camera did not get this detail (probably because the autofocus can't cope with looking into a microscope).






Everybody has had an introductory glance through the microscope, and some of us are already pretty good at operating the focus wheel. The microscope is available all day, every day.


You delight your science specialist every time you say to your child, "I wonder what THAT would look like in the microscope. Do you want to bring it to school and take a look?"

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