Finally, "the eye of xantho"

xanthoman

Avid Member
FINALLY, THE EYE OF XANTHO,
after 2 long months on backorder, including multiple delays, i have finally taken possession of my celestron pentaview 44348 lcd/ldm. this was released at CES 2011 to rave reviews and have been flying off of the shelves ever since.

first impressions are mostly good, but first a little history. i had the little brother to this scope a few years back the 44340. i liked the ldm concept, and as pointed out by others before me the 44340 stood out in its price range as a candidate for cham pathology. i liked the scope, did everything it was supposed to do, but was only moderately impressed with the quality of build, and the scope only had a 2mp camera. my eventual goal was HD photomicroscopy, so after a coupleof years i got rid of it, but i liked the concept and pledged to myself that if they ever made an upgraded version, i would have to buy it. they made that version, the celestron 44345, and i was on the fence about buying it for the longest time. i was almost ready to pull the trigger when the pentaview made its debut at CES 2011. it was a little beyond my planned budget so i had to wait a couple of months. then when i actually went to order it it was no suprise that everybody with a decent price was already backordered. sure i wanted it bad but i didnt want it throw away $60 bad, so i just got on the list and waited. this is why;

http://www.celestron.com/science_education/microscopes/pentaview-lcd-digital-microscope.html

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i'll be doing a complete unboxing and more thorough review in the near future, as well as a review of the celestron 44302 and needless to say, its likely i'll be doing some additional posting on microscopy issues this summer.
for those that are interested, there are a couple of more pics in my newly created cf microscopy album, with more pics to be added soon.

this thing is sick with features and off the chart in wow factor, if its half of what its cracked up to be, it will be impressive, but that remains to be seen ;) xantho
 
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Finally! ;) That looks like a bad a** scope! Makes my celestron look like an etch-a-sketch!
Im looking forward to the review Xantho, along with everything else:)
 
Well since you got the holy grail of scopes!! Can you do a blog on how to perform a proper fecal exam and what to look for etc! I want to get a scope to start doing my own decals ($60 per animal is crazy/ I own 5 and soon to be 4 more). I must learn the ways to save da moneys!!

That thing looks sick. I'd gladly invest that $419 since its right around what me last vet visit looked like. Lol
 
holy grail of scopes ?

Well since you got the holy grail of scopes!! Can you do a blog on how to perform a proper fecal exam and what to look for etc! I want to get a scope to start doing my own decals ($60 per animal is crazy/ I own 5 and soon to be 4 more). I must learn the ways to save da moneys!!

That thing looks sick. I'd gladly invest that $419 since its right around what me last vet visit looked like. Lol

despite all its cool features and wow factor, one thing it is not, is the holy grail of scopes. imo, that title clearly belongs to the amscope t-490-a. but thats sort of comparing apples to oranges since it is a different style of scope. the pentaview is like the classroom sharing scope, and even has a lot of features that the t490a doesnt have.

but the t490a is an old school all optical trinocular microscope built to iso standards with a simple but high quality build, with significantly better optics and an infinite # of parts and upgrades, and a strong customer service history. the t 490a is one of the highest quality scopes in its price range and is in use in many professional labs around the country. but its not an ldm and i sort of wanted the feature richness of the pentaview ldm, plus i was still about $50 short of the t490a in the configuration i wanted (would have been about $425 with 3 mp ccd). i guess it all depends on what a persons goals are.
i bought this scope because i have other photomicroscopy requirements besides cham keeping, but i will still be doing a walkthrough for fecal procedure and posting on a #of other cham related photomicroscopy issues over the coming mths.
 
i pd $370 shipped. you can get a 44340, the little brother of this scope for about $170.

you can get a $6 pathogen chart from here but it takes a little practice to know what you are looking at.

http://www.beautifuldragons.com/Parasitechart.html

in addition to a microscope you would need about $50-150 in additional stuff to get setup properly. (fecasol, fecalizers, buchner funnel , fritted disc, pipettes, lab tweezers test tubes etc. dedicated microscopy workstation etc
 
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i pd $370 shipped. you can get a 44340, the little brother of this scope for about $170.

you can get a $6 pathogen chart from here but it takes a little practice to know what you are looking at.

http://www.beautifuldragons.com/Parasitechart.html

in addition to a microscope you would need about $50-150 in additional stuff to get setup properly. (fecasol, fecalizers, buchner funnel , fritted disc, pipettes, lab tweezers test tubes etc. dedicated microscopy workstation etc

I'm with it!! Did I mention a $400 vet bill?!?! Lol

Thanks for the info!
 
I'm with it!! Did I mention a $400 vet bill?!?! Lol

Thanks for the info!

this is why i recommend microscopy to everyone. with viable photomicroscopy scopes <$200, its a no brainer.

alot of people recommend yearly fecals, if you have 2 animals @$40 test, thats $80 a year just on routine tests, thats not counting retests. the beauty of microscopy is that you can do a fecal whenever you have a suspicion or even if you're just curious. once you are setup, fecals probably cost less than $2, the beauty of photomicroscopy is that you can share images with forums, vets etc. jmo
 
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