Bresser Youngster 40-1024x Microscope with HD Eyepiece Camera

The Youngster 40-1024x is a compound microscope for children aged 8 and over, Bresser's figure, with a USB eyepiece camera in the box so the picture can go on a computer screen as well as through the eyepiece. It's lit from under the stage only, so it's for slides: onion skin, a hair, a feather, muddy water from a watering can, as Bresser puts it, and the five prepared slides supplied.

The optics are two wide-field eyepieces, 10x and 16x, three objectives of 4x, 10x and 40x, and a 1.6x Barlow lens that pulls out of the eyepiece tube, which is how 640x becomes 1024x. The body is metal and plastic in silver, 28 cm tall, with two clips on the stage and the option of a mechanical cross table later. The eyepiece tube is 20 mm wide rather than the usual 23.2 mm, worth knowing if you ever want a different camera.

The HD eyepiece camera replaces the eyepiece and connects by USB to a Windows 10 or 11 PC, where Bresser's software shows the live view and saves JPG photos and MP4 video. It doesn't work with a Mac, a Chromebook or a tablet. Watching brine shrimp hatch from the kit in the box and filming them grow is the project Bresser suggests first, and our microscope camera guide covers what else an eyepiece camera can do.

Also in the box are five blank slides, ten cover slips, a pipette, tweezers, mounting medium and sea salt, and the whole set weighs 1.24 kg. The Junior 40-640x below it is a simpler first microscope without a camera, and the Biolux NV above it adds a light above the stage, a mechanical stage and a hard case. The rest of our microscopes for kids sit alongside it.