Meade 9460 Microscope

by Meade

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 17.6 x 12.2 x 7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005064C
• Item model number: 9460
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #39,282 in Camera & Photo (See Top 100 in Camera & Photo)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: November 7, 2000

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

The Meade 9460 microscope comes with a research-level assortment of equipment, components, and features. The five prepared slides will help introduce you to the workings of your microscope. Then, take the five blank slides and be as creative as you want. Use them to investigate plant life, minerals, cells, and anything else that strikes your interest.

The large 110- by-120-millimeter illuminated stage has easy-to-use micrometric x-y controls for centering your specimen in the field of view. The eyepiece rotates 360 degrees, and is set at a convenient and comfortable 45-degree observing angle. Meade uses an abbe-type condensing lens combined with an iris diaphragm to give you bright, uniform illumination of the specimen.

The microscope's turret-mounted objective lenses, with magnification levels of 10x, 40x, and 100x, can be combined with the two wide-field eyepieces of 10x and 12.5x to yield magnifications of 100x, 125x, 400x, 500x, 1,000x, and 1,250x. Its coarse-and- fine rack-and-pinion focusing mechanism makes this a precision observing tool, and a perfect educational tool for advanced studies in botany and biology.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dramatic views of the microcosmic world, April 12, 2001

By 

Maritess Wessendorf (Burke, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Meade 9460 Microscope (Electronics)

This instrument provides a great learning experience for those wishing to observe matter at the microscopic level. Becoming interested in pond water, because of Biology class, I wanted my very own microscope that could view, in my case, protozoa (small single-celled creatures in pond water) at a highly magnified level. After much research, I would recommend this 9460 model, or the 9600 model,the latter having a binocular eyepiece head. There is a great difference in price though, yet both models have the same features, and same high powered magnification, the greatest at 1250x. The 9460 model is a value, and gives a valuable learning or researching experience. This is a great gift for a young, interested amateur scientist, or a student that is interested in researching or viewing the great diversity of "small" life; "up close and personal."

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Response to Chris Newman, January 17, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Meade 9460 Microscope (Electronics)

Scope is very good and Solid. Chris Newman (previous review) had problems with the 100X objective because it is an "Oil Immersion" lens and he was attempting to focus at that High Magnification (1000X) without applying a drop of oil between the objective and the slide. (The 9460 and 9600 come with a little bottle of oil in the box.)

Here is a snippet from a site explaining why oil is needed for this reason.
Remember that the 10x, 40x are dry focus lenses but the 100X requires "immersion oil".

Here is the snippet.

Oil Immersion: A microscopy technique to close the air gap between the tip of an objective and the top of the specimen with a drop of oil compounded with a refractive index to match that of the glass in the objective.  Once the objective contacts the oil droplet of matching refractivity, that portion of the optical system becomes a unit.  Immersion oil is the only suitable oil for that purpose in order to achieve very high magnifications, typically from 500x to 1,500x, and avoid damage to the objective. Because very high magnifications require a very oblique angle of entry for ray bundles, they will tend to reflect, refract, scatter and disperse, without forming a sharp image, unless a unifying medium is used.  Immersion oils are available in indices of refraction to match optics

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Quality Insturment, April 9, 2002

By 

David S (Florida City, FL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Meade 9460 Microscope (Electronics)

Our family and many of our friends home school our children and wanted a good microscope to assist with our biology studies. We searched the web for a quality microscope that would help make the subject interesting and enjoyable. Even though we thought the Meade 9460 Microscope to be a little pricey for our school group, we went ahead and bought. We were not disappointed! You get what you pay for. The high quality glass optics are clear and crisp, even at high magnification. The fine focus feature is a must, allowing the kids to focus easily and quickly. The moveable calibrated slide feature makes exploring each slide easy and thorough. The light with diaphram gives the viewer more control observing objects with different contrasts. The only thing I would like to see added with this microscope are a few more blank slides and an instruction book about making your own slides, and maybe some tricks about viewing. Other than those minor objections, this microscope has surpassed our expectations and is well worth the money. The extra features make using this scope enjoyable and easy enough for our nine year old son to operate. Our children have seen many different types of life found growing in water from an old bucket to a nearby river! Every week, our kids look forward to learning about biology and how small living things can be. The Meade 9460 Microscope made all this possible.