5 ms·

Are you sure? I ask because the Dutch were wild by the end of the seventeenth century, people like Antoni van Leeuwenhoek achieved 500x magnification with a sin

by devjab 3y ago

Are you sure? I ask because the Dutch were wild by the end of the seventeenth century, people like Antoni van Leeuwenhoek achieved 500x magnification with a single lens microscope as an example. If you wonder why I know this, it’s because this was when the first bacteria are believed to have been observed. Leading off to the next part that I’m not so sure of, but the single lens microscope was/is terrible to use, and this lead to the first compound microscopes being build shortly there after. I believe the practical limit of those is 2,500x magnification though I’m not sure when that was made possible, but many of the ones we have in education today range from 400-1000x magnification (mostly down to cost and care of the institution).

WillPostForFood 3y ago
I've looked at a couple sources and they all say 250x: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9186497/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9186497/ https://www.nsf.gov/news/speeches/colwell/rc01_anatlesson/tsld005.htm https://www.nsf.gov/news/speeches/colwell/rc01_anatlesson/ts...
- devjab 3y ago
  You seem to be right: https://denstoredanske.lex.dk/Anton_van_Leeuwenhoek https://denstoredanske.lex.dk/Anton_van_Leeuwenhoek Says 275x. I guess my education lied to me.
denton-scratch 3y ago
> 2,500x magnification You can, of course, magnify as much as you want; but you won't see more detail. "Junior" microscopes often brag of a 1000x magnification; but that only works if the lenses are really good, and in that kind of microscope, they aren't. You need 1000x to see bacteria. Bacteria are really boring to look at; they appear as undifferentiated spheres or rods. And even then you can't see them at all without fixing and staining. Single-lens microscopes suffer from spherical abberation (only the centre of the image is in focus) and chromatic abberation (everything has rainbow fringes around it). These problems are worse with greater magnification. As far as I can tell, the best "mass-market" compound lenses these days are made in China. Source: I bought my son a microscope a few months ago; he said he wanted to see bacteria. I hoped a "junior" 'scope would get me off the hook, but I consulted suppliers, and they warned me off, and told me quite a lot about how to choose a 'scope. I also bought him a set of stains and solvents, including a gram-staining kit. I did a fair bit of research before I spent money.
- monetus 3y ago
  Happen to blog about it, or have some links?
  - denton-scratch 3y ago
    I bought from these people: http://www.brunelmicroscopes.co.uk/ http://www.brunelmicroscopes.co.uk/ They have some good pages on choosing a microscope. There are sites dealing with amateur microscopy that have many pages of advice on setting-up and using microscopes, and on staining and slide preparation. I don't blog, at least not at the moment.
- dekhn 3y ago
  tardigrades are far more interesting to look at than bacteria. Basically all the tiny animacules. You need no more than 5X-10X and are quite easy to see when they're still alive.
  - denton-scratch 3y ago
    10x is good enough for many interesting subjects. Stuff like daphnia, and especially diatoms. I'd like to have a source of diatoms. I tried car-body rubbing compound, which is sometimes made with diatoms, but I don't think the stuff I tried had diatoms in it. I spent a feverish couple of weeks learning about microscopy and slide-preparation, before handing over the 'scope I bought to my son, to save him time doing the research himself (I guess I was afraid he'd be too busy). I've handed it over now; but I bought myself a 10x and 20x hand-lens.
    - dekhn 3y ago
      You can order live diatoms from Carolina Biological: https://www.carolina.com/algae/diatoms-living/FAM_153020.pr https://www.carolina.com/algae/diatoms-living/FAM_153020.pr you can grow the culture you get from them continuously if you enjoy keeping algae pets. note that diatom are really hard to see, and you do want very high magnification. These days I don't really use slides- I found that glass-bottom petri dishes work well, but that's at least partly because I do inverted imaging (objective pointing up, through the sample, towards the illumination) with a custom-built XY stage microscope.

by devjab 3y ago

WillPostForFood 3y ago

I've looked at a couple sources and they all say 250x: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9186497/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9186497/ https://www.nsf.gov/news/speeches/colwell/rc01_anatlesson/tsld005.htm https://www.nsf.gov/news/speeches/colwell/rc01_anatlesson/ts...

devjab 3y ago
You seem to be right: https://denstoredanske.lex.dk/Anton_van_Leeuwenhoek https://denstoredanske.lex.dk/Anton_van_Leeuwenhoek Says 275x. I guess my education lied to me.

denton-scratch 3y ago

> 2,500x magnification You can, of course, magnify as much as you want; but you won't see more detail. "Junior" microscopes often brag of a 1000x magnification; but that only works if the lenses are really good, and in that kind of microscope, they aren't. You need 1000x to see bacteria. Bacteria are really boring to look at; they appear as undifferentiated spheres or rods. And even then you can't see them at all without fixing and staining. Single-lens microscopes suffer from spherical abberation (only the centre of the image is in focus) and chromatic abberation (everything has rainbow fringes around it). These problems are worse with greater magnification. As far as I can tell, the best "mass-market" compound lenses these days are made in China. Source: I bought my son a microscope a few months ago; he said he wanted to see bacteria. I hoped a "junior" 'scope would get me off the hook, but I consulted suppliers, and they warned me off, and told me quite a lot about how to choose a 'scope. I also bought him a set of stains and solvents, including a gram-staining kit. I did a fair bit of research before I spent money.

monetus 3y ago
Happen to blog about it, or have some links?
- denton-scratch 3y ago
  I bought from these people: http://www.brunelmicroscopes.co.uk/ http://www.brunelmicroscopes.co.uk/ They have some good pages on choosing a microscope. There are sites dealing with amateur microscopy that have many pages of advice on setting-up and using microscopes, and on staining and slide preparation. I don't blog, at least not at the moment.
dekhn 3y ago
tardigrades are far more interesting to look at than bacteria. Basically all the tiny animacules. You need no more than 5X-10X and are quite easy to see when they're still alive.
- denton-scratch 3y ago
  10x is good enough for many interesting subjects. Stuff like daphnia, and especially diatoms. I'd like to have a source of diatoms. I tried car-body rubbing compound, which is sometimes made with diatoms, but I don't think the stuff I tried had diatoms in it. I spent a feverish couple of weeks learning about microscopy and slide-preparation, before handing over the 'scope I bought to my son, to save him time doing the research himself (I guess I was afraid he'd be too busy). I've handed it over now; but I bought myself a 10x and 20x hand-lens.
  - dekhn 3y ago
    You can order live diatoms from Carolina Biological: https://www.carolina.com/algae/diatoms-living/FAM_153020.pr https://www.carolina.com/algae/diatoms-living/FAM_153020.pr you can grow the culture you get from them continuously if you enjoy keeping algae pets. note that diatom are really hard to see, and you do want very high magnification. These days I don't really use slides- I found that glass-bottom petri dishes work well, but that's at least partly because I do inverted imaging (objective pointing up, through the sample, towards the illumination) with a custom-built XY stage microscope.