monocular or biocular

[Lis]

Hi next year we will be running bio for the first time, and we are looking at purchasing microscopes and trying to decide whether we need monocular or biocular microscopes. It seems that biocular are very expensive, when monocular have the same magnification, stage bits, and light sources etc. I am interested in what others have and if there is any advice for our purchase.
thanks
cheers
Lisa

[Sassi]

I have had monocoluar microscopes at both the schools I have worked at (Shore and Wenona) which seemed to be enough for what the students need them for. However, I personally hate monocular microscopes, as they are not used anywhere else in the science world. Its much better to learn to use a biocular microscope, so if your school can affors them I would strongly suggest to get those instead I might be lucky enough to get some next year, Keep your fingers crossed!!!

[cactus155]

To confuse you a bit we have both here.
Monocular for looking at slides etc and also Binocular dissecting microscopes the monocular ones get a lot more use. Try a company called Australian Instrument Services haven't had a problem with them and they sometimes have a buy 2 get 1 free deal thing happening

[Sassi]

Wouldnt the monocular ones get more use becasuse the two different ones ar actually used for different purposes? Dissecting microscopes are for larger object, such as maybe little live crustaceans or looking at whole object, whereas a compound microscope is used for things that require higher magnification, ie at the cell level. Whether you are getting a dissecting or a compound microscope, binocular types are still much better than monocular, well thats what I think anyways

[rae]

Hi,

Our bio classes use Monocular microscopes for cell work. These are adequate for what they are doing. Is it really worth the extra expense for something that does the same job?
They also use dissection stereomicroscopes for looking at flower structures and things like that. We have ones with built in light sources for the senior classes. These are very good.
Hope this helps with your decision making.
Lorrae