Celestron 44347 TetraView LCD Digital Microscope

I had for some time been thinking of microscopy as a new hobby. I am retired (in my mid-70s) and the lockdown seemed a good excuse to splash out. I have used microscopes before and although this was some 50 - 60 years ago I was sure a microscope was just a microscope. How wrong can you be! I mean, I should have guessed that microscopy would have gone digital. So I went shopping on the internet.The Celestron 44347 TetraView LCD Digital Microscope was my final choice. Most appealing was the idea of a screen view. My sight is typical for my age and spectacles do not help when looking into a microscope eyepiece. This screen is just slightly larger than my smartphone. But the big advantage is that I can take a JPEG snapshot and then send it by USB to my laptop (Apple MacBook) or even to my desktop PC. It works with the laptop and although I haven't tried it with the PC it should work.It talks about magnification and digital zoom. There are 4 objective lenses which, combined with the camera magnification, give 40x, 100x, 200x and 400x. What you see on the screen is equivalent to what I used to see down an eyepiece all those years ago. The screen image can be magnified up to 4x but that image is a bit blocky. That is a function of the view screen and is to be expected. But again the strength is that the snapshot when sent to a computer can be magnified and zoomed and photoshopped as well as any other JPEG.The microscope itself is robustly constructed and is certainly not a toy. But neither does it feel quite industrial or professional. It is, for me, a grown-up hobbyist instrument. There is much to recommend this for an older child, but not as a plaything. It is not easy to operate although having said that, any young person who has a smartphone and a laptop would be able to use it. I have seen another review where the author advises caution in adjusting the focus because of the possibility of cracking a slide and damaging a lens. I can see that and heartily agree. Another reason why it may not be suitable for a heavy handed child. The vernier XY stage is one of the better points of this instrument. It is also robustly made and sensible in operation.Delivery was timely and issue-free, a consideration in this time of lockdown. However, there were some discrepancies. There are only 7 prepared slides but this was offset by the SD card being 8GB instead of the advertised 2GB. But there was no USB cable, instead there were 2 AV cables. The supplier needs to get a grip on the package department! Fortunately I have a load of various cables and was not inconvenienced. Just mildly irritated and it cost them one star.All in all, I am satisfied with the purchase. I would advise anyone new to this (like me!) to also buy some sort of slide preparation kit and perhaps a couple of instruction books. There are several recommendations with the microscope.

In general I was most impressed with this microscope although I do have some reservations. The build is solid with a feel of quality, it is very easy to set-up and use, the image quality is good, and the excellent case makes it very portable. On the down side, I am sure that the objectives could be more parfocally mounted although this is not enough to affect my rating. More seriously the magnification with all 4 objectives is about 70% higher than the specified values (40x is 70x, 100x is 170x, 200x is 320x and 400x is 690x). This brings with it 2 serious disadvantages. Firstly, at the bottom end one needs a much lower magnification to provide a larger field of view; something that is very necessary when viewing insect specimen and rock slides for example or locating oneself on the slide. Secondly, at the top end the 690x magnification makes the working distance far too small and I am sure slides and even the objective itself will be damaged by many users. Personally I would willingly trade the 690x for one of less than 30x if at all possible.

Fast delivery lovely item I would highly recommend

I like this product very much, good quality and easy to use, thank you.