is this an egg or some kind of cyst? i keep seeing these but ive never managed to watch one hatch or excyst

K55 BSA, 40x Plan, ELP Cam

I made a post yesterday about buying an old microscope from an antique shop. It came with a few sample slides that I used to see a bit of dried blood or old algae up close, which was cool. But I bought this to see living organisms, and I tried that out today.

There’s a lake by my house that I have to imagine is teeming with microbiological life. I collected three larger samples and pipetted droplets from each onto a few different slides, but they’ve all been pretty uninteresting. It’s cool to see little bits of whatever up close, but I haven’t seen anything living, nor anything resembling a microorganism. I recognize that this should be a bit more complicated than plug-and-play, but I believe I’ve followed all the steps listed out by members of this community and others online. For context on what I’m working with, see the linked post above. It isn’t much, but it goes up to 40x. Shouldn’t this be suitable enough to see some stuff?

Oblique light. Sample: water from dish plant pot.

Any one knows what these are i got this from my XSP 115rt microscope at 400x total mag

Rate my microscope it's XSP 115rt image quality is super good 👌

Any suggestions

100x / 1000x - No oil

I'm pretty sure it's a rotifier, Lecane genus.

Olympus BH-2 BHT, X10, X1000 magnification.

Pixel 9 camera.

Darkfield with green filter.

Swift SW350, Galaxy S24

Please explain this to me like I’m 5. We just got our microscope, have some prepared slides, focused fine, could see what we wanted, etc.

Moved on to trying cheek swab, see nothing but blue blur, no cells at all. Do I need to let the slide dry before putting on methylene blue? I’ve tried with water, without water, with dye, without dye, with a swab, with a toothpick. Tried with blood because my son’s tooth fell out-still can’t see any cells. Help?

Sorry for the newbie question.

I want a new Microscope, nothing is wrong with mine. I want it for the sole purpose of photography and identifying things I find. Would the Swift SW380T be a good investment?

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?

Found a great tardigrade sample!
IS-1153-PLPHi, iPhone 17e, 20-60x objectives

This video is from my AmScope B120C-E5 w/ 5MP Camera. Video taken at 1000x. This is a sample from algae I scrapped off a rock.

• First off, what is the thing moving around? At the end of the video I'm pretty sure that's a diatom.
• Advice on how to identify things in the future?
• I'm pretty bad at the lighting and focus, any tips on that would be appreciated!

I'm a few days in, having tons of fun! Can't wait to get better and find some cool stuff.

https://reddit.com/link/1v2v1ll/video/876zgbrrcneh1/player

Sample of water from dish plant pot. Old microscope, and magnified with phone camera.

Actinophrys is a genus of heliozoa, amoeboid unicellular organisms with many axopodial filaments that radiate out of their cell. It contains one of the most common heliozoan species, Actinophrys sol. It is classified within the monotypic family Actinophryidae (Wikipedia)

K55 BSA, 10x & 20x Plan, ELP Cam

Amscope IQCrew inverted microscope 10x objective, iPhone  2.7x, Petri dish with jarrarium freshwater, lichen, aquatic moss, and algae. Blackmagic app, flashlight to the right. Paper over the condenser.

I was just about to give up on finding anything interesting when the cat distracted me. Lucky for me, when I went back to look at the clump of algae that was sitting there, this guy was walking around on it!

footage taken after upgrading the lighting to a 10W LED

K55 BSA, 10x & 20x Plan, ELP Cam

Hey all! I'm new to this sub so apologies if I'm rather ignorant but my girlfriend is in love with animal care and has many setups for her isopods, aquatic snails, fish, shrimp, and more! She had considered asking for a proper microscope from her family for her upcoming birthday, but ultimately decided against it and wanted to do research beforehand. That being said, now that that window's open I'd love to be able to get it for her but wouldn't want to take that leap and buy a product she isn't satisfied in, ruining her future chances of getting what she actually wants one day. Are there any microscopes y'all would recommend that is somewhat budget-friendly yet applicable to her needs? I'll go into more detail if requested and thank you for your patience, I love animals but am frankly new to the microscopic world. Appreciate it!

Swift SW350, Galaxy S24, 100x

Model: Eureka Microscope

Magnification: ~100x

200× | ESAW BM01 2022 MICROSCOPE used | sample: pond water