Where are you shopping? Florescent microscopes are in the low six figures and others are much more expensive. A confocal microscope is typically several hundre

Where are you shopping? Florescent microscopes are in the low six figures and others are much more expensive. A confocal microscope is typically several hundreds of thousands of dollars, potentially approaching $1M if it has all the bells and whistles. Super-res and high-throughput imaging can also consume essentially infinite amounts of money. You could probably get a usable brightfield microscope for around a $1,000 but realistically, you're not publishing much with that alone.