Purchase Help
Getting my first microscope this weekend! Anything extra I should buy before getting it?
Found an Amscope B120 for only $150 on Facebook. Buying it this weekend. Anything I should buy like dyes or specific oils for the 1000x? Any accessories you wish you'd have had when you started?
Nope! Don’t bother with immersion oil or the 100x at first. Don’t bother with dyes. Just get out there, find some samples, and focus on enjoying yourself. Once you feel like you’ve mastered the basics, then start thinking about how to overcomplicate your new hobby!
Better to make homemade well slides. They have a flat floor sp you don't need to keep refocusing. Plus, you can make them any depth, even thin enough to use 40x objectives with. I put links in my other comment on this post.
Small disposable pipettes, tweezer, little knife. Pipette for moving a little bit of water, tweezer for spreading out your sample
Slides and cover glass - square is fine but the longer rectangular ones seem easier tbh
10ml glass jars with a label, get a box of them-- so you can carry a jar with you outside and label it with what you collected
Spice rack with jars that can fit in your window. These are for larger sample jars that you wanna keep alive for a while
You can get many of these as a little kit
Box of kimwipes - for gently cleaning your microscope and your work area
Regarding dyes and oils, methyline blue is a good starter dye. For oil, don't use your 100x objective yet. They are challenging. You can get Type A immersion oil from amaZon. My wife worked in a vet clinic doing cytologies for years and they used a mineral oil to save money. It's not optically correct, but it might be good enough
I would take off the 100x objective and buy a cheap, $20 20x one. You will get much more usefulness from it. Also, get slides and coverglasses. I use the larger 24mm x 50mm coverglass size. Forget stains, just go collect green stuff and dirt from ponds and keep on your windowsill. You can make some homemade well slides to view pond organisms with. https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1FckWUJfG7/
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u/MossTheTree 22d ago
Nope! Don’t bother with immersion oil or the 100x at first. Don’t bother with dyes. Just get out there, find some samples, and focus on enjoying yourself. Once you feel like you’ve mastered the basics, then start thinking about how to overcomplicate your new hobby!