SuiteSisterMary's Journal: Microscopes for hobby use?

The wife and I have decided to get a microscope for our daughter, for her birthday. I can't seem, however, to find a decent resource telling me what to look for in a microscope.

From what I've found, the high end for home hobby use seems to be 900x magnification; I'll be damned, however, if Google can tell me what that means in objective terms. Of course, having said that, somebody will post the magic Google words to find just that.

When you get right down to it, though, what I want to know is: with 900x magnification, can you see neat things like blood cells?

Anybody have any suggestions?

What to look for in a microscope?

[johndiii]

Really small stuff. Okay, sorry about that.

How old is she? Has she used a microscope at school, or is this a shot in the dark? Googling turned up Microscope World [microscopeworld.com] and Microscope Depot [microscope-depot.com]. From the front page of the former, I'd guess that 900X would be more than enough to see blood cells. A biology teacher might be the one to ask about this.

Dunno, but.

[Domini]

A friend of mine has one of these:

http://support.intel.com/support/intelplay/qx3/t op questions.htm

Dunno much about microscopes, but it sure is a neat toy... :)