Microscope Magnification
 

I would like to buy an inexpensive microscope to use to look at samples of my beer. I was hoping to be able to observe and identify yeast cells as well as other bacteria present in my homebrew. How powerful (what magnification) of a microscope do I need to accomplish this?

Would this one suffice?:
http://www.amazon.com/Vivitar-Micro-View-Microscope-150x/dp/B0030CICSW

I don't have any actual help for you, but here are a few intro pages i found on microscope usage and required magnification - one was even beer related.

good luck and I hope you realize you are pushing the geek boundary on this one.
:mug:

jason


http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~bioslabs/methods/microscopy/microscopy.html

http://forums.morebeer.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=34955&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

http://waynesword.palomar.edu/lmexer1.htm#relative

yeah, this time you might have pushed it a little over the line on the geekery.....:tank:

thanks. its not a boundary that I mind pushing.

Not very much, 10x-100x appears to be fine.

Check out the PDF here: http://www.whitelabs.com/beer/microscope.html

http://img295.imageshack.us/img295/84/yeast.jpg
This is apparently 40x and they're pretty big and easy to see.

Edit: Apparently White Labs says you want 400x scope for cell counts: http://www.whitelabs.com/beer/cell_count.html.

thanks. that white labs page is really useful!

I can't see yeast cells with a 40X.

hmm... the white labs page says that the slide images on their site were captured at 40x.

I bet that is supposed to be 400x

The lense at the front of the microscope is 40X and the eyepiece gives a 10X extra magnification, for a total of 400X. As a microbiologist, I can tell you that a microscope will be a waste of time and money for you. If you want viable cell counts I would do a dilute to extinction plate technique, this is far more accurate.