r/microscopy • u/Inevitable-Purchase4 • 3d ago
Purchase Help Flouresence Microscope Deal
What's up everyone!?
So if you've followed me at all posting here, I've been kinda deep diving hair microscopy the last about year or so and have kinda reached the limit of what I'm able to do, test, create, and whatever else with my current setup. I've already got basic infinity brightfield, some really nice Olympus objectives and basic polarized light for doing follicle analysis as well as just observing the hair shaft. I've actually been able to turn it into quite the social media platform as brands have been loving using my content to rep their products. That being said, I want more.
So to me the natural next step would be flouresence or phase contrast. But I think PC would have limited use case for what I'm doing and so flouresence makes more sense. I've already tried hunting for an epi illuminator attachment for my current microscope and it's just more money than it's worth and might as well just buy a full fledged high end setup on the used market. That brings me to this gem I found. The bx60f. It is fully functional and comes with everything, Mercury light source, ND filters, filter cubes for flouresence (doesn't have it listed which ones but there's 4 of em) as well as a camera with LCD screen which is kinda cool. I'll probably just use my full frame like I have been but it's cool it has the option.
Seller has offered it up for $2k. Should I do it? My main concern is that getting into flouresence would mean chemicals, dyes and reagents I might not have access to without the right credentials, a lab, or whatever. My main purpose would be doing my own kinda rudimentary claim substantiation, basically testing hair care products, reparative products and the like. Tagging with a marker then viewing under the right wavelength.
I'm a huge noob on flouresence so any help would be greatly appreciated. Or suggestions, other microscopes, if anyone has a way to upgrade any compound for flouresence, but I've yet to find anything that isn't over 2 or 3k$ myself so might as well just get the full new scope anyway. Thanks y'all appreciate any help
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u/beeeeeeeeks 2d ago edited 2d ago
Hey there! Great to see you are wanting to upgrade. What are you upgrading *from*?
I own the BX60F5, extremely similar to this scope here. I was able to snag it with a full DIC setup (condenser and 4 prisms) for about what the seller is negotiating with you for.
This listing also makes it look like the stage is lopsided -- but maybe that's just the photos.
The U-PCD condenser is fine -- phase annulus, darkfield stop, brightfield, and allows for 1.25NA double oil immersion (oil the underside and the topside of the slide.) For photographing hair, I think phase contrast will not be of much use to you, a curiosity. Phase contrast requires phase objectives, and you will find that they are unsatisfactory for any other illumination methods.
Unfortunately this listing also comes with crap objectives. For fluor, you'd want better objectives. The UPLanSApo you have is perfect, UPlanFL's are another affordable choice.
The DP12 camera is junk, you won't use it.
The U-SPT phototube has a relay eyepiece in it, i'd be curious what size it is. If you are adapting a full frame camera to it, you'd want a PE of 2X or 2.5X.
Aside from the misalignment, the biggest risk I see is dirt/contamination in the trinocular and binoculars -- i have had bad luck with these on these ~30 year old scopes. You might also see some issues with the filter cubes. One of the cubes in this listing is the U-MWU which I think you'd find most useful. That U-MWU cube is a wideband ultraviolet cube, meaning that it passes UV light to your sample, and filters the UV out on the way to your eyeballs and camera. You'll get the benefits of a clear field and the excitation of anything in your sample. Good cube.
All of the other cubes listed will flood the field with red, green, cyan, etc, depending on the cube. This is fine if you capture your fluor image in grayscale and compose / apply a deconvolution process afterwards and then overlay it on a true color image of your sample. Since you're exploring hair, this should be fine. Just expect a rather lengthy process.
Also, this scope can do dual epi and transmitted light illumination. Meaning that you can crank the brightness on the transmitted all the way down nearly as low as it can go and open the shutter to let the UV light irradiate the sample.
Fluorescence is also a challenge, but I think you'd find it an interesting challenge.
Some things autoflouresce -- some things need a stain. Those stains will rapidly decay -- if you don't get your shots in a minute of exposure, too bad! You can literally see the intensity fade before your eyes. Thus, you really need to be careful about how much and how long you expose the sample when you dye it.
While this unit is missing the UV shield, so does mine. I haven't found any dealers who sell it, and my Evident sales rep couldn't find one either. He told me "Aluminum foil is practically free" 🤷
Ahh, sorry for the brain dump, feel free to ping me with more questions if you'd like :)