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Looking for a stereoscope around $150


aplomado

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I am looking for a recommendation for a stereoscope for around $150... I need to recommend this to someone I know, but am not familiar with stereoscopes in this price range.


I know this price point may be kind of hard to do, so if it needs to go up a little get one that is acceptable, that is okay I think.

 

 It will be used to look at pond water (water bears), so upper and lower illumination will be helpful I think.

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150 might be pushing it.  Esp if you want to do it right the first time.  I (and others) strongly recommend getting one with boom stand, not the regular microscope stand.  It will allow you MUCH more flexibility when working with fossils.  And of course it costs more...

 

 

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I agree with everything that, @jpc said. You will probably want to spend more like a few hundred, if you don't you will most likely regret it.

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This isn't for fossils, it is for pond water.  It doesn't need a boom stand.  It is for a child.

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That does make a lot more sense, I guess I just did not think about how it would be used for looking at pond water instead of fossils! :DOH: I can't recommend one under $150, but check out amscope.com. I ordered my microscope from them and I really like it. 

 

-Micah

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I understand you specified a stereo microscope, but have you considered a digital microscope? $150 can get you a very mediocre stereo microscope (if at all) or a fairly nice digital microscope. Especially if it is for a child, the benefit of a digital microscope is that you can display the image on a computer screen, and you can point out features on the screen in real time. Since it is digital, you can let them fiddle with it since it has less moving parts and thus a bit more resistant to breakage. It is also more portable which is useful for taking along on family trips.  

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I have never used a digital microscope .  Do you have a recommendation?  What kind of resolution do they go?

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Dino-Lite seems to be a well known brand for digital microscopes. I'm fairly pleased with my Dino-Lite, but I haven't tried other brands so I can't recommend one brand over another. There does seem to be a bewildering array of makes and models out there, its pretty overwhelming. The generalist models seem to magnify from 10x to 200x range. The resolution can range from less than a megapixel to 10 megapixels.

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My stereoscope is from the brand Novex. It was about £150, so likely a bit more in USD, but still, that was the cheapest stereoscope I could find here and it works perfectly well. I have a friend who specialises in foraminifera and works in the Natural History Museum, he uses a very similar scope to mine.

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