JISCMail - CCP4BB Archives

You will get a variety of opinions here, but I really like my Olympus SZX-12. (I used many different models when I was training, and I by far preferred the Olympus scopes for their ergonomics. YMMV) For xtallography you will want a separate (cold) light source with fiber optic cable. I have a 1X objective and 10X binocular eypiece, which gives up to 90X magnification. You can also attach polarizers to the stage and to the objective if you wish. A simple eyepiece adapter will allow you to use most Olympus C-series digital cameras to document images. (The other option is a trinocular head which is very expensive, although very nice for teaching purposes, as you can feed the live digicam CCD image to a video monitor. It is slightly dimmer than a binocular head, since you have to split the light path again.) I think I got my basic setup for about $12K several years ago.

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Roger S. Rowlett
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Colgate University
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