Microscopy Refresher
In my zeal to stay ahead of the grandkids' education so I am able to continue to converse with them about anything they may care to share or question, I am constantly trying to stay on top of my own education. Fortunately, I enjoy research and educating myself so I do this everyday anyway.
I spent a lot of time during my primary and secondary education using microscopes for a wide variety of subjects. Even my college engineering education required the use of microscopes on occasion. For my last year of college, I was also a student teacher teaching various aspects of civil engineering to underclassmen. At times, even this required some microscope use. I also used microscopes in my physics classes at the Merchant Marine Academy. As if all of that wasn't enough microscope use, I've had my own microscope since around sixth grade.
Now, many decades later, I like watching the grandkids' interests and knowledge evolve so I'm constantly trying to introduce them to new things. Some things they like, some things they don't like but, through these casual introductions I often present, they become familiar with a very wide variety of topics. This provides them with a great advantage in their education as well as a great advantage in making the decisions on which paths to choose in life. The more they are introduced to, the better equipped they will be at making life decisions and choosing their own path.
Naturally, as they get older and more intelligent, I'm finding I need to revisit many of these decades-old and sometimes long-forgotten subjects in order to refresh my own memory first. I, myself, have a very broad education and my interests are even broader so that is a plus. I highly recommend this approach of pursuing a very broad education for as long as possible. I'm still pursuing this education every day.
The past few days I've been focused on refreshing my memory about microscopy. Even though a few decades have passed since touching a microscope, it is all coming back to me fairly quickly and easily. I played a little last night and Sheila seems to be enjoying it too!
I have a basic binocular compound microscope. Well, technically, this is a trinocular compound microscope because there is a third ocular that can be used for connecting a camera to the microscope. In this photo, below, the microscope is set up as a binocular compound microscope...
This particular microscope has a nice dual speed focuser making micro focus adjustments far easier and fluid...
I have four objective lenses on a nice big turret with a nubby rubber grip...
The stage can be easily moved in both the x and y axes by using fine adjustment knobs and the stage has a graduated scale on both axes...
The objective lenses include a 4x, 10x, 40x and a 100x... the long 100x objective lens requires immersion in oil (just a drop on the slide) and careful adjustment against the glass slides....
I have two sets of eyepieces for the binocular viewer... a lower power 10x set and a higher power 20x set. When we combine the power of the objective lenses with these eyepieces, my magnification range is from 40x to 2000x. That is a pretty nice range.
Although tough to see in this photo of one side of the stage, this particular microscope has a halogen light with an adjustable iris and Abbe condenser just below the stage. This helps significantly with properly lighting the specimen while providing good contrast... there is also a dial for adjusting the brightness of the halogen light...
I have over 100 prepared slides ready to go (and I still have more buried somewhere in our storage room)...
I can connect this microscope through the third ocular to my Surface tablet which allows me to capture images and capture video to record observations. The software can also be used to compare images, measure subjects, or to simply record the session. In this image, below, we are seeing part of a Honey Bee leg...
In this last image, we are observing a cross-section of a lymph node... which would probably be of interest to Gee since some of her cancer cells found their way to her lymph nodes this time around... it would be interesting to have some slides of abnormal cells too...
I have a lot of great ideas for observing sessions that the grandkids can relate to even at their relatively young age. We can start with everyday objects... household objects... insects... parts of the body... fingerprints... and even move into some forensic comparisons too. It should be fun! And, we'll be able to record these observation sessions in images and video.
I could be wrong but I have a feeling that Kenzie will show more interest in what can be done with microscopes while Lukey will probably be more excited about telescopes and astronomy. Either way, they will both have knowledge of and experience with microscopes and telescopes.
On the positive side, anything new is fun for at least a short while!
I spent a lot of time during my primary and secondary education using microscopes for a wide variety of subjects. Even my college engineering education required the use of microscopes on occasion. For my last year of college, I was also a student teacher teaching various aspects of civil engineering to underclassmen. At times, even this required some microscope use. I also used microscopes in my physics classes at the Merchant Marine Academy. As if all of that wasn't enough microscope use, I've had my own microscope since around sixth grade.
Now, many decades later, I like watching the grandkids' interests and knowledge evolve so I'm constantly trying to introduce them to new things. Some things they like, some things they don't like but, through these casual introductions I often present, they become familiar with a very wide variety of topics. This provides them with a great advantage in their education as well as a great advantage in making the decisions on which paths to choose in life. The more they are introduced to, the better equipped they will be at making life decisions and choosing their own path.
Naturally, as they get older and more intelligent, I'm finding I need to revisit many of these decades-old and sometimes long-forgotten subjects in order to refresh my own memory first. I, myself, have a very broad education and my interests are even broader so that is a plus. I highly recommend this approach of pursuing a very broad education for as long as possible. I'm still pursuing this education every day.
The past few days I've been focused on refreshing my memory about microscopy. Even though a few decades have passed since touching a microscope, it is all coming back to me fairly quickly and easily. I played a little last night and Sheila seems to be enjoying it too!
I have a basic binocular compound microscope. Well, technically, this is a trinocular compound microscope because there is a third ocular that can be used for connecting a camera to the microscope. In this photo, below, the microscope is set up as a binocular compound microscope...
This particular microscope has a nice dual speed focuser making micro focus adjustments far easier and fluid...
I have four objective lenses on a nice big turret with a nubby rubber grip...
The stage can be easily moved in both the x and y axes by using fine adjustment knobs and the stage has a graduated scale on both axes...
The objective lenses include a 4x, 10x, 40x and a 100x... the long 100x objective lens requires immersion in oil (just a drop on the slide) and careful adjustment against the glass slides....
I have two sets of eyepieces for the binocular viewer... a lower power 10x set and a higher power 20x set. When we combine the power of the objective lenses with these eyepieces, my magnification range is from 40x to 2000x. That is a pretty nice range.
Although tough to see in this photo of one side of the stage, this particular microscope has a halogen light with an adjustable iris and Abbe condenser just below the stage. This helps significantly with properly lighting the specimen while providing good contrast... there is also a dial for adjusting the brightness of the halogen light...
I have over 100 prepared slides ready to go (and I still have more buried somewhere in our storage room)...
I can connect this microscope through the third ocular to my Surface tablet which allows me to capture images and capture video to record observations. The software can also be used to compare images, measure subjects, or to simply record the session. In this image, below, we are seeing part of a Honey Bee leg...
In this last image, we are observing a cross-section of a lymph node... which would probably be of interest to Gee since some of her cancer cells found their way to her lymph nodes this time around... it would be interesting to have some slides of abnormal cells too...
I have a lot of great ideas for observing sessions that the grandkids can relate to even at their relatively young age. We can start with everyday objects... household objects... insects... parts of the body... fingerprints... and even move into some forensic comparisons too. It should be fun! And, we'll be able to record these observation sessions in images and video.
I could be wrong but I have a feeling that Kenzie will show more interest in what can be done with microscopes while Lukey will probably be more excited about telescopes and astronomy. Either way, they will both have knowledge of and experience with microscopes and telescopes.
On the positive side, anything new is fun for at least a short while!
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