The hardest part is moving each cell to the “counted” pile. 
quote author=ndcube link=topic=937.msg11151#msg11151 date=1263390002]
Here’s a thread that was started:
http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=713.0
[/quote]
Thanks
Screw that, the things will keep them in line
Darn it. Now I wish I know where the things came from. I’m also convinced that it wasn’t a simple bacterium due to its size. At least it doesn’t seem to be in my beer.
Babalu, to count yeast cells you’ll need a counting chamber (a.k.a. hemacytometer (sp?)) Otherwise you can’t correlate the count to the volume.
This showed me that I really have to work on finding a low cost way of taking microscope pictures.
Kai
Maybe the magnification is off and the “thing” is really…
I am convinced that it was a large yeast cell.
Or, possibly a small dog…
Kai, have you checked here?
This isn’t the least expensive scope but it sure looks like the one I’d want if it were me.
Most of us already have digital cameras and all that is needed to take pictures with the microscope is an adapter. Depending on the quality these seem to cost between ~$40 and $200+.
Kai
This is pretty interesting.
I bet yeast counting would be much easier here.
Bad thing about these digital microscopes is that you have to have Windows computer at home.
If you run Mac or Linux you are out of the luck 
Kai, Check out this link for the cheapest camera I have found
http://www.physlink.com/estore/cart/USBDigitalMicroscopeEyepiece.cfm
Karl, have you used this? I would be worried about the image quality.
Kai
Oh quality has to be fantastic because it “capture vivid color images” as they claim 
It does not even support Vista or Windows 7.
I have not tried it out. I have not been impressed with any photos from low cost cameras. My last light microscope setup was a Zeiss, and it was a comfortable 5 figures. I expect that this product is a cmos chip on a flimsy digital setup with an adapter to fit an eyepiece, but you are pointing out the need to be able to photograph something. I do not expect that you would be able to take publication quality photos with any $59 camera, whether it is attatched to a microscope or not. If you want to show a picture of something to a microbiologist or folks on the list and ask them “what the %$#! is this?” I suspect it will do the trick.
For a camera, you might try cannibalizing a web cam. I did this ~10 yrs ago and it worked well enough. I can’t remember the details unfortunately, but it did work
How would you do magnification?
Would you just attached it ti eye piece?
Would not it be blurry?
Tonight I just took a Point&Shoot camera and pushed its lens onto the eye piece. It worked surprisingly well:
These are cells from a WLP833 yeast starter at 400x on a hemacytomter. I didn’t take a pic of the small grid which I use for counting since I wanted to include a non-viable cell. That cell stained blue with methylene blue. Almost all of the cells in the sample were alive and I had to search for a dead one.
While the quality works for posts here it is not as nice as I want it. Especially the outer regions are blurry.
No “things” in this sample though.
Correction: the width between the two grid lines shown is 0.25 mm and not 0.2 mm.
Kai
Wow! :) That looks like a good pic to me… I don’t know if I’d spend the money at all. jmo…
Wow, now I just really want a microscope…
Me too