Brock Magiscope

This is not a post about sewing or about making anything at all.  We have a Brock Magiscope, which is a type of microscope that is super-sturdy, and I know that there are a few people around who are trying to decide what type of microscope to buy for their kids, so I thought I'd post a few pictures here that I've taken through the microscope.  It should give a bit of an idea of the detail that you can get.

For most of these photos I just pointed my camera (an Olympus PEN - like a DSLR) onto the top of the microscope and used auto settings.  Recently I ordered a small part that screws onto the lens that just blocks out outside light - I used that for the catydid photo, but didn't have it for the others.  Most of the time I took a few photos - some worked well, others were not as clear.

First is a little catydid that I found already dead.  I put it into a little plastic box and under the microscrope.  It was about 1 to 1.5 cm long in total.  This is the magnification that comes with the microscope - 40x.

These two are onion cells - just pulling a thin bit of the skin off the onion.  I took these photos over a year ago and of course didn't label them, but I know that I was playing with the highest magnification I could get, so I'm pretty sure that this first picture is at 400x.  The next one was obviously less, but I'm really not sure what.  Perhaps 200x.  I shone a cheap torch in underneath the microscope just to give a little more light then I had in the room which helped.  It was very hard to focus.

This shows yeast that has been left to sponge.  It was something that my daughter did at school, and I googled and googled for more info to know what I was looking at - is it just the air bubbles?  I'm not sure.  Again, at the time I was playing with different magnifications, so unhelpfully, I can't tell you what this is, except that I'm pretty sure it wasn't as high as 400.  I will start to write it down.  Really.

I'll try to take some more to add when I can.  That's all I can find now.