One of the things I used to enjoy doing when I was teaching science and I had a spare moment (very rare) was to grab a dissecting (stereoscope) microscope and look at anything and everything with it. Dissecting microscopes provide an upright and correct right-to-left image and are relatively low powered compared to conventional microscopes. On the other hand, no need to make a slide when observing with one of these scopes. Just stick any object at hand on the tray and start observing!

It's amazing how different things look at even a modest 20-40x magnification. Rocks, twigs, plant parts, insects, soil, cloth, newsprint, jewelry, circuit boards, computer chips, small machine parts all take on a different personality when magnified. You haven't really seen the fangs on a spider until you've seen them at 40x!

Lately, I've been thinking of starting a new hobby - studying and collecting rocks and minerals. Not that I need an excuse for adding another instrument to my optical collection, but I do think the LOMO SF-100T would be a great choice for this hobby. With the SF-100, I can magnify all the way up to an amazing 100x. Best of all, I can even take pictures of all those amazing things.

Now all I have to do is get that spider to smile.

Spent a beautiful day this last weekend with my boyfriend at a local state park along the Lake Michigan shoreline. We saw many Golden-crowned Kinglets, an Eastern Phoebe and just to prove there really was a bird with that name, a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. John is an excellent woodsman with a lifetime of experience in the outdoors (I would never settle for less in a companion), but birding is bit new to him. I'm not sure if was laughing at the name or the way I got so excited when I saw this pretty little woodpecker. Can't wait to see what shows up for us next week.

We are now carrying a full line of Alpen binoculars, spotting scopes and riflescopes. I've reviewed some of the higher quality models of Alpen binoculars several years ago and was very pleased with what I saw. Alpen will be a welcome addition to OpticPlanet.net and at long last, we will be able to fill all those requests for Alpen products.