stephg Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 (edited) Those of you who have purchased the Brock Microscope, which one do you recommend? There are 4 different scopes that go from 20x up to 400x. Also, do you recommend any of the accessories? Thanks, Stephanie ds8 Micah and ds4 Agi eta: I tried to add a link within my question but had some trouble. http://www.magiscope.com/model70.htm Edited February 8, 2012 by stephg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legomom Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 I am going to get mine on Ebay. The one that I am going to bid on comes with 25 slides. Did you decide to get one? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asher Posted March 2, 2012 Share Posted March 2, 2012 :lurk5: and BUMP! I'm also curious about what power to order. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
besroma Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 :bigear: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mystika1 Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 I have package 2. I got mine for $40.00 on ebay and we are so happy with it. I don't feel the need to purchase any other objectives for it as of now. Maybe the higher objectives would come into play at higher grades. I inquired about microscopes two months ago and some of the replies that I received were telling me to buy something from home science tools instead. I am so glad I followed my gut on this. My aunt is a highschool biology teacher and was very impressed with our Brock. My girls take it outside and have absolutely no trouble focusing and I don't have to worry about them cracking it to bits. I purchased some premade slides and my girls also make their own. I love that I don't need to buy batteries or plug it in. Even when we have to switch objectives while we are looking at something..it is still not a problem. Can you tell we really like our Brock.:D Penny Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NittanyJen Posted March 24, 2012 Share Posted March 24, 2012 Wow. I used to do a lot of microscopy for a living-- as in, everything from a pretty simple phase-contrast microscope at my bench while I was dropping metaphase preps (exploding cells on a slide much like dropping water balloons on a sidewalk, then seeing if the chromosomes spread out nicely) to an epifluorescent microscope (one capable of seeing fluorescently tagged gene loci pretty close together on said chromosomes) to a microscope so sensitive it could be used to track the progress of individual proteins within a cell, and had to be floated on a bed of gas, because otherwise passing cars 500m away would jiggle it too much to get good images-- I've done a lot of very sensitive microscopy. The Brock Magiscope is not a toy; it is an excellent microscope with very good optics, solidly built (in the USA!) and so easy for my kids to use straight out of the box that they can focus on what they want to see instead of fussing with the anatomy of the microscope. I have the model 70 with all of the lenses and eye pieces they sell (I am, after all, a bio geek). I love that this microscope is so sturdy that we can bring it on hikes and to the beach or wherever without worrying over breaking it, or about batteries or a power supply-- there isn't one. The lumarod lighting system works beautifully with ambient light. One great surprise I found was the ability, of all things, to quickly snap pictures, handheld-- not even tripod mounted-- with my ipod, my ipad, or a 35-mm camera, right through the eye piece of the 'scope, and get some halfway decent shots. Now, how fun is that going to be for the kids??? I was using the larger eye piece and just goofing around with really (really) ancient cardboard slides, an old dishcloth, a piece of copper ore, etc, and the pictures are just too much fun-- maybe I'll post them on my blog soon (haven't done so yet). Yes, for high school biology, I will probably scare up a more standard style microscope with a mechanical stage, parfocal lenses on a turret, coarse and fine focus knobs, and so forth so that the kids are 'microscope literate' when they head off to college. But for grammar and logic stage, the Brock is not only a more than respectable scope; it has outstanding optics, allows photography, it's virtually indestructible, it travels well, and best of all, it's so simple to use that a kindergartener could use it from day one to enjoy what they were looking at and have the objects being observed be the main event rather than the mechanics of microscopy. As somebody who has logged a few hundred hours at an eyepiece professionally, and had my images published in peer-reviewed journals, count me a fan of the Brock. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UmMusa Posted July 13, 2012 Share Posted July 13, 2012 Wow, impressive review. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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