Celestron CM2000CF Compound Microscope

My grandson wants to be a scientist... specifically an Entomologist. He's careful and thoughtful with his toys and such... I wanted to get him a real microscope, not one of those plastic toys. This one will last him into high school...maybe even early college. Plus his Dad, my son-in-law is into science as well...so they study things together using telescope and now microscope. A reasonable price for a functional tool that will serve well.

I was very surprised that his Microscope was a good as it is for the price. It's not large but large enough and had great power for it's size. It is very substantial. I'm glad I ordered it.

It works well for our homeschool labs. One thing I noticed is I have an old high school microscope that is so much heavier and sturdier, and this one seems like it would be so easy to break. The first time I used the immersion oil that came with it, the oil wouldn’t come out, the end popped off, and oil splattered all over the microscope. Also, it says it comes with a microscope cover, but it didn’t.

I bought the Celestron Labs CM1000C monocular compound microscope as my first microscope. I had a tiny bit of previous experience with biological compound microscopes at school. I paid 134.36 USD for the product, not including the international shipping cost of getting the product from Amazon USA to my location outside the USA.I ended up returning the product because the LED illumination was defective. The LED would flicker and also randomly brighten and dim itself, especially within the first minute after the LED is switched on. That is a major annoyance because object being observed under the microscope would sometimes be too dark, and then suddenly become too bright. That seriously affects viewing comfort and clarity. The instruction manual had no information about replacing the LED, so I could not fix the issue on my own. I do not understand why there is no information about replacing the light bulb, considering that it is a consumable part of the microscope.A major downside of the microscope is that its condenser is NOT an Abbe condenser. The primitive condenser on this microscope is merely a rotatable plastic disk with holes of different sizes.If it were not for the faulty LED, I would have been mostly satisfied with the microscope, considering its low price and acceptable capabilities. The 10 prepared slides (fungi, plant cells, animal cells) are great for initially learning about the operation of the microscope. I later prepared my own glass slides and did manage to see some plant cells, cyanobacteria, and a live nematode. Images were reasonably clear. The fine focus knob is very useful for getting a precise focus, which is why I chose the CM1000C instead of the CM800 model which only has a coarse focus knob.Two eyepieces are included: 10x and 25x. The 10x eyepiece has a pointer in it, while the 25x eyepiece does not. I am not an optics expert, but it would have probably been better to include a 15x or 16x eyepiece instead of the 25x eyepiece. The extra magnification from a 25x eyepiece relative to a 15x eyepiece probably does not improve the resolution of details seen under the microscope. The effect of the extra magnification is probably similar to the "digital zoom" on a typical camera (as opposed to "optical zoom"), where the image becomes larger but with more "pixelization" instead of better resolution. But I understand that if Celestron did not include a 25x eyepiece, it would not be able to claim "1000x magnification" for marketing purposes.The LED illumination can be powered by 3 AA batteries but I did not try using batteries. Instead, I used the AC adapter. The AC adapter is "universal" in the sense that it has changeable prongs for fitting into the power socket used in your country (e.g. EU plug, UK plug, NEMA plug).After returning the microscope, I would not purchase it again, even if the LED illumination were not defective. That's not because of any other defects in the microscope. Rather, it is because after using the microscope for some time, I realized that a binocular microscope would be so much more comfortable for the eyes. This product is a good monocular compound microscope at a great price, but now I realize that I need a binocular microscope as my long-term microscope.About the returns process: I initiated the returns process and sent the product back to Amazon US using my local post office's Express Mail Service (EMS) for international shipping. After slightly more than a week, Amazon received the product and gave me a full refund, which included the amount that I paid for the product, the international shipping cost, and the cost that I paid for the return shipping at the post office. Amazon initially refunded only 20 USD of the return shipping cost, which was insufficient in my case. Amazon customer service quickly agreed to refund the remaining amount when I contacted them via chat.

This microscope was worked well for us. The maximum objective lens is a little too long and we keep bumping it into the slide (or getting it wet if liquid on the slide) but it is also the least use lens so that’s not been too much of a trouble. I was initially going to buy a used laboratory microscope but glad went with this one. And certainly glad did not buy one the “toy” microscopes.

This is the tiniest scope I have seen and for $100 it is cheaply made

This item was missing one of the eyepiece lenses.

Nice small and well built microscope,