Review on Celestron Digital Microscope Imager 44422 by Jill Kohlmeyer

Very happy with this product but there are a few small issues. The software does not provide a resolution setting that exactly matches the image sensor's native resolution, so the image must be zoomed in or out to fit the size, resulting in some pixel distortion. The frame refresh rate is also a bit slow to get accurate focus. There are programs other than the one provided that work better with it. (see: Science4all - Microscopy and Photography). Another thing is the barrel diameter. It is slightly smaller (about 0.5mm) than a standard microscope eyepiece, which makes it rather difficult to fit into the microscope body, sometimes resulting in an unstable image and making it error-prone for measurement purposes. I had to wrap it with tape to make it fit better. The scope of delivery includes an adjustable sleeve for setting the intervention depth in the microscope tube. There is a small white indicator on the body that shows approximately where this sleeve should be adjusted to make the unit parfocal with various objectives or microscope zoom settings equipped with this feature. It may take a bit of fiddling before it fits well enough. This device has no lens. It is designed as a direct replacement for a microscope eyepiece, where the objective's image is projected onto a sensor chip. It should NOT be used with an existing microscope eyepiece or with a microscope without a detachable eyepiece. It seems some users are a bit confused regarding this detail. Here, too, no fixed magnification number is specified, since "magnification" only depends on the lens used on the microscope and the distance of this lens to the sensor. Also, magnification is subjective as it also depends on the size of the display (monitor) (or projector if used) to display the final image. It's just a webcam with no lens in a more convenient package. I once made my webcam version of this but it got lost somewhere. I bought it because for little more than the cost of a webcam it would save me a lot of time and effort. It was also the simplest and cheapest (for the resolution I needed) available. It's not just useful for microscopes, either. It also works well with telescopes as long as the telescope uses interchangeable eyepieces and its diameter can be adjusted.