Microscopes and Telescopes are not cameras. They are basically the same as lenses, however, and often have film or digital cameras attached. Indeed, serious research with telescopes is usually done with sophisticated digital image sensors attached to the telescope. All the principals of camera lenses generally apply to microscopes and telescopes. In my Photograph and Math article I start my discussion of aperture with telescopes since they generally have a fixed focal length and a single aperture making the analysis easier.

Microscope History. The first microscopes were developed around 1590 by Hans and Zacharias Janssen. Further work was done by Robert Hooke and Anton van Leeuwenhoek in the later half of the 17th century (1600s). In his 1665 book Micrographia Hooke used the term "cell" in observing cork, the bark from a certain oak tree. These cells are the basic unit of life. Anton van Leeuwenhoek expanded on this work observing bacteria from the mouth and protozoa from pond samples. (See generally Soutwestschools.org - Microscopes.) Major improvements occurred in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Major photographic lens makers have also been involved in making microscopes including Zeiss, Nikon and Olympus. Molecular Expressions Microscopy Primer: Museum of Microscopy has photos of exquisite microscope designs from the 16th through 20th centuries. Without the microscope, major advances in biology and medicine in the 19th and 20th centuries would have been impossible. Besides light microscopes, scanning and transmission electron microscopes were developed starting in the 1930s. These use electron beams instead of light to create an image. They generally cost at least hundreds of thousands of dollars and are used by universities and other research institutions.

Telescope History. Not coincidently, the advances in lenses also lead to the telescope being developed in the early 1600s. Hans Lipperhey and Jacob Metius of Middelburg in the Netherlands developed telescopes in 1608. Sacharias Janssen, from the same city, also developed a telescope at the about the same time. As indicated above, Janssen was also responsible for the development of the microscope. In 1609 Italian Galileo Galilei used 3X, 8X and 20X telescopes to observe the Earth's moon, as well as four of the moons of Jupiter. He also observed the phases of Venus and sunspots. Galileo's microscope used lenses and was a refracting telescope. Around 1671 Isaac Newton developed a reflecting telescope that used a curved mirror, instead of a lens, to collect the light. (The Galileo Project - The Telescope.) Curved mirrors could be made with greater diameters than lenses. Reflecting telescopes could therefore gather more light.

Microscope and Telescope Selection. Microscopes and telescopes are, of course, important instruments for scientists today. We are lucky enough today, however, that most families can afford to have a microscope and telescope far better than anything Hooke, Galileo or Newton would have had and indeed, better than many research instruments earlier in the 20th century. I recommend every family with children get a microscope and telescope. They are truly windows to other worlds of the very small or the very far away. It is a great opportunity to discover the wonder of nature and science. It is also an opportunity for parents and children to experience this wonder together. Also, parental involment is necessary to get the child off on a solid footing. It is important to carefully research what to get before you buy. Otherwise, you may end with an instrument that is stuck in the closet as happens with countless thousands or millions of telescopes and microscopes.

Microscopes. For a microscope, I recommend a quality "high school" level instrument with a 10X wide field eye piece lens, at least three objective lenses for powers up to 400x, fine and course focus, Abbe condenser and iris diaphragm, and a built in light source either fluorescent, halogen or LED. With the shopping around, you can generally find a decent scope for around $200 give or take. The LW Scientific scope below is an example of decent high school level scope. LED light sources are new. While I have not used microscopes with an LED light source, a big advantage is that they use less energy and hence can be powered by batteries. This is a great advantage in a classroom setting avoiding the need for AC outlets and the danger of tripping over cords. If money is not an object, you can get a binocular, professional quality microscope like the Unico G380 below. While I have not used them, www.amscope.com appears to have nice microscopes at very reasonable prices. I would not shy away from a quality microscope made in China. There are also many microscopes made recently in India for very reasonable prices. I have not tried them. Stay away from your typical department store or toy store microscope. The focus is poor, the lenses are very low aperture not letting in enough light, and they are difficult to use. A wonderful page about buying microscopes is at Canadian Nature Photographer.

Dissecting Microscopes. The microscopes described above are light transmission microsope where there is a light source at the bottom that shines up through the specimen which is placed on a glass slide. Another type of microscope is a dissecting, inspection or stero microscope. With a dissecting microscope, the light shines on the specimen. There are often two powers such as 10X and 30X or 20X and 40X. Take a look at your skin, the material in your clothes, a leaf, a flower, a butterfly, etc. under one of these scopes and you will be amazed. Prices will be similar to a light transmission microscope. While your image won't be as spectacular, an alternative, especially for kids, is a pocket microscope which usually magnifies 30X and may have a zoom function. They are usually around $10 give or take. An example is at Edmund Scientific.

Telescopes. There are three main types of telescopes available: (1) refractor which uses lenses to bend or refract the light, (2) reflector which uses a mirror to bend the light, or (3) a Schmidt-Cassegrain or Maksutov-Cassegrain which use a main curved mirror at the bottom of the tube, but also a lens at the top of tube. The lens corrects optical aberrations and also supports a small secondary mirror which reflects the light back to the eyepiece. Terrace Dickinson in his excellent book Nightwatch, A Practical Guide to Viewing the Universe (pages 67-74) (Firefly 4th ed. 2006) recommends beginners choose a 6 to 8 inch Dobsonian mounted reflector. Dobsonian mounts are simple wood mounts that rotate about the base and go up and down. Their advantage is ease of use and relative portability. Their disadvantage is that they do not track the stars. Stars appear to constantly move during the night because of the Earth's rotation. Some telescopes can move along with the apparent motion of the stars. He recommends against the typical 60mm department store refractor telescopes which have too small of aperture and are usually on flimsy mounts and tripods. For an idea of prices, an Orion SkyQuest XT8 Classic Dobsonian Telescope is $329.95 at Orion Telescopes and Binoculars as I write this in August 2009. A 6 inch Dobsonian, Orion StarBlast 6 Astro ReflectorTelescope, sells for $279.95. A classic starter telescope dating back to 1976 is the Edmund Scientific Astroscan. It is a 4.25" diameter (about 105mm) reflector that looks to me like a big red bomb! It has a very unique mount in which the spherical bottom of the telescope rotates in metal base. That base can be mounted on a tripod or simply set on a flat surface. It is now called the Astroscan Plus featuring a better focusing mechanism and a red dot sighting system. It sells for $229. It is made in China. It actually use to sell years ago for $400 when it was made in the U.S. Orion has a 4.5" table top Dobsonian reflector (Orion StarBlast 4.5 Astro Reflector which is highly portable like the Astroscan for $199. Celestron now has a very small 76mm diameter reflector, called the Celestron FirstScope, on a Dobsonian mount that sells at Orion for only $49.95.

Telescope Diameter, Not Power, Is Important. In discussing the telescopes above, I did not refer to the power of the scope. Rather, the more important factor is the diameter of the lens or mirror of the telescope. The larger the diameter of the lens or mirror, and hence the larger the area, the more light that can enter. In general, big diameter is better. However, bigger diameter also generally means larger price and weight and less portability. Therefore, you must balance those factors also.

The majority of the microscope is made of brass. It has a 7x "G.M.O.CO." (i.e. Gundlach Manhattan Optical Company) eyepiece. The case contains an extra 3x G.M.O.CO. eyepiece. The microscope has three objectives mounted on the turret - (1) C. Leitz Wetzlar, oil (spelled oel) immersion, Agert 1:30, 1/12, Serial No. 68292, (2) Betz 2/3 (no other designation), and (3) Betz 1/6, Tube Length 180 N.M. There are two brass containers for the 1/12 and 2/3 objective lenses. The microscope has a diaphragm operated condenser. It also has a Bausch & Lomb mechanical stage. It also has a reversible mirror. There is no electrical light. It has both coarse focus and fine focus. The fine focus is on a wheel on top of the main support. The microscope appears to be professional level such as might have been used by a physician or at a university. This style of scope, especially with the U shaped base, is apparently called "continental." The scope tilts just below the stage. The basic design appears to have been used by many manufacturers. There is a good discussion of a similar, although simpler and perhaps earlier, Gundlach-Manhattan scope sold on eBay. My scope comes with a wooden (Mahogany?) locking case (14" x 8.5" x 7") with the key.

The scope was purchased at a garage sale in the Spring Valley - Mt. Helix area of San Diego County, California on February 7, 2015 for $30. The young couple selling it had received it as a gift. They did not know anything about the history of it. The scope and case are both in good cosmetic. The case and lock work well. The scope is in working condition although the corse focus is very stiff and the turret moves extremely stiffly. I was able to position the turret to view through the lowest power objective. The view is crisp and clear like with a modern scope. I think all the focus and turret need is lubrication. This is a wonderful and beautiful addition to my microscope collection and my first really old microscope.

"UNITRON originated as a family-owned business in the early 1950s in Boston, Massachusetts. The company and its products has been in continuous successful operation for over 60 years earning an impressive reputation as a manufacturer of high quality microscopes, cameras, telescopes, and binoculars." (Unitron - About Us.) Starting in 1975 the company went through a series of corporate changes and moved its headquarters to New York. The company is still in the microscope business. While Unitron is an American company, my microscope was made in Japan as indicated by a plate on the botton labeled "Japan."

Phase microscopes are particularly useful in studying living organisms. Cells are largely transparent. With a typical brightfield microscope you often must apply a stain which is absorbed more by some parts of a cell or tissue than other parts allowing you to see different parts of the cell or tissue. Many stains kill cells, however. To observe living cells or simply to avoid staining, phase contrast microscopy can be used. Phase contrast microscopy allows phase shifts in the light waves passing through the specimen to be converted to amplitude or brightness changes that you can see. Phase microscopes have a phase ring in the objective and a matching annulus or ring in the condenser. Most phase microscopes have separate condenser annuli to match with the phase ring in each objective. The Unitron MPH, however, has only one condenser annulus. Its relative size is changed by moving the condenser vertically. This method allowed for a relatively inexpensive phase microscope. Phase contrast microscopy was first described in 1934 by Dutch physicist Frits Zernike. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1953. For more information about phase contrast microscopy, see Nikon Microscopy U. This quicky goes over my head and makes one appreciate Zernike's insights. While it may be difficult for me to understand the theory, in practice using the Unitron MPH is relatively easy.

My microscope was purchased in San Diego from an ad on Craigslist in December 2011. The ad title originally had the price at $65 while the body of the ad had the price at $135. I indicated I would buy it for $65. I ended up buying it I think for $65 or close to it. The microscope is in excellent cosmetic condition. It works, although the fine focus is not working. Also, it was not focusing close enough. I believe I successfully adjusted the focus stop, however, to fix this. The microscope body is solid metal and very heavy. The microscope did not come with the Model LLV High Intensity Illuminator and I have not seen one for sale on eBay. The Illuminator was a five intensity transformer. I did not work with microscope until May 2021 after I had retired. When I tried to take out the EL-2B frosted bulb, the glass bulb detached from the metal base and some gritty material came out. It looked like whatever held the glass in place had dried out. EL-2B bulbs showed up on eBay from about $15 for a few new old stock bulbs. Other offerings wanted over $100! Since these bulbs are expensive and may have also deteriorated, and since I did not have the transformer, I looked for alternatives. From Amazon I purchased frosted "EverBright 10-Pack White BA9S Led Bulb T11 756 1893 1847 Bulb Replacement for Pinball Machine Light Bulbs Games Machine Toy Car Lights Lamp, 5630 Chipsets, DC 6V 6.3V" selling for $9.62 plus tax. These bulbs with a bayonet mount fit the socket on the microscope perfectly. I hooked up a mini LED dimmer I got on eBay (5 for $5). I powered the circuit with a "7.2V 2400mAh Ni-MH AA Rechargeable Battery Pack with SM-2P 2Pin Plug and USB Charger Cable for RC Truck Cars Vehicles" which I also use for a vintage Bowmar 901B calculator. I then hooked this up with "Gikfun JST SM 2-Pins 2P Female & Male Plug Connector Wire Cables," which allows the battery pack to be easily disconnected. The LED bulb has a white balance of 8000K (i.e. very white) with 90 lumens. I don't know how that compares with the original bulb. The battery pack is rated at 7.2 volts which is over the 6 volt rating of the bulb. It has not caused a problem yet, however, and I can turn it down with the dimmer.