I went to a local antique shop and picked up this microscope. I’ve wanted to get into microscopy for a long time, but as a student with a budget of about $7, it’s been prohibitively expensive. I don’t yet know if I lucked out or not (I spent $100).
It’s a Fisher Scientific microscope in decent condition. It came loose in a random cardboard box, so no product box or label tells me its model type or year. Its product number(?) printed on the base is 6806746, which did not yield any conclusive Google results. It looks like its lens numbers are 4 (though this one is damaged), 10, and 40. Are these levels of magnification (ergo 40 = 40x magnification)? From what I’ve seen, it’s hard to get up close to most living microbes with anything less than 1000x. I learned (accidentally) that the lenses can be unscrewed; did they ever sell replacement lenses at higher magnifications? I’m willing to spend a bit more money on a site like eBay if that’s the case.
Basically, I want to know if this microscope is actually useable. I’m able to see things on the sample slides the microscope came with, so it does function, but it may not be good enough as it is to do proper microscopy with live organisms. Does anybody have any insight into this microscope and its potential?