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Museum Store Company : The Finest Selection of Historic and Museum Jewelry, Art History Replicas and Museum Reproductions! Own a Piece of History...Give a Piece of History (tm) MuseumStoreCompany.com | |  | Microscopes | Home » » Celestron Digital Microscope Imager | | | | | | | Description: | | Celestron Digital Microscope Imager 44421 | | | Features: | |
• View and/or capture snapshot images or video with your computer
• Adapts to virtually any type of microscope
• 2mp sensor resolution with USB2.0 cable attached
• Imager replaces the eyepiece of your microscope so you can view comfortably on your computer screen
• UVC Plug and Play driver
| | | Product Details: | | | Product Length:
| 6.0 inches | | Product Width:
| 5.8 inches | | Product Height:
| 2.0 inches | | Product Weight:
| 2.0 pounds | | Package Length:
| 5.9 inches | | Package Width:
| 5.9 inches | | Package Height:
| 2.0 inches | | Package Weight:
| 0.5 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 19 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
 ( 19 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 21 found the following review helpful:
 camera is OK, software is junkSep 19, 2010
By atlantic1
"atlantic1"
The camera takes very good pictures (2 MP) and acceptable (VGA resolution) videos PROVIDED it is used with appropriate software. The Celestron software that came with the camera was absolutely useless when used on a Windows XP platform, the picture refresh rate was horrible, i.e., the picture shown on the computer screen was updated only every few seconds or so, which made microscope manual focusing virtually impossible and made using the camera very frustrating. Things got much better once I switched to Adobe Photoshop for image capture, and to InterVideo WinDVD Creator for video capture (both overkill for the task at hand, and I did spend one more day selecting and testing the software - the problem was complicated by the fact that the laptop I was using had an incorporated webcam which would could not be distinguished from the microscope camera by other software). Truth be told, though, one could get away with using the camera for taking pictures with no additional sofware (from Control Panel, Printers and Other Hardware, Scanners and Cameras, then right click on the USB camera and use the pop-up menus directly in Windows for image capture and saving), but I wanted a program that would allow for better logging of the pictures.
Bottom line, I use the camera in conjunction with a Celestron 44104 microscope in lieu of the 10x or 12.5x eyepieces (the camera is 15x), and my initial concerns about mechanical adaptability were unfounded, it does have an adaptor ring that fits the microscope quite nicely. The pictures are very good, and I am very happy with it, I would have given it four stars if I hadn't had to spend so much time finding software that would actually make it work to its full potential (other people may have to shop around for software, and that's a considerable additional expense).
20 of 21 found the following review helpful:
 A USB Microscope camera suitable for LinuxNov 10, 2010
By Stuart J. Nettleton
Here is high quality a USB microscope camera at a reasonable price. It is truly universal video camera (uvc) compliant in contrast to many "no-name" brands are not uvc compliant. It will be very difficult or even impossible to be use a non-compliant model with Linux, for example I have not been able to use a USB microscope based on an iPassion 1b3b:2938 chip and an email to the manufacturer was ignored. Celestion is completely different. The command "luvcview -L" brings up the various display modes. To run the program with say 800x600 resolution, just use the command "luvcview -f yuv -s 800x600". An even better program to use is guvcview. Unless you are using the Ubuntu operating system this program needs to be compiled into the kernel. Physically, the Celestron USB microscope camera is designed to slide directly into your microscope lens barrel. There was a little bit of play in my microscope barrel so to achieve a snug axial fit I expanded the outside diameter of the camera with a small amount of tape.
13 of 14 found the following review helpful:
Hardware good; Software goodNov 24, 2010
By Lawrence Harris
In spite of previous reviews about poor software, I chose to try this out anyway. I found everything to be exactly as advertised. The harware fits precisely. To operate, you simply plug in the USB connector. The other controls are the usual focusing operations found on the microscope itself.
The software works well on my old Dell desktop upgraded to Win 7. It installed and launched without a problem. On first use I had to go into the Setup menu to tell the program which type of device I was using. Focusing and use then went smoothly.
Completely satisfied.
9 of 10 found the following review helpful:
Fantastic Quality for the Money! Easily Worth 3 X This Price!Jun 21, 2011
By The Resident Gourmet
When I first ordered this imager, I wasn't holding out too much hope of being blown away with the image quality. After all, a high end version of a device like this can sell for a heck of a lot more than $50.00! I mean seriously... What kind of quality could I expect out of a version that sells for under fifty? How about nearly as good? I'm totally serious! This thing is GREAT! I recently purchased and returned several USB equipped digital microscopes looking for one that could not only give me impressive results through the eye piece, but also high quality SHARP images on my computer that I could then save, archive and share. Unfortunately, all of the models I purchased prior to my last had at least one fundamental FLAW in the design that made it a poor choice for what I was looking for.
As I was boxing up the 5th digital microscope product for return and refund to Amazon.com, I decided that I would just focus on a quality microscope first and worry about the computer side of things later. After spending a few hour reading up on the latest brands and models of quality scopes, I purchased the Celestron 44104 500x Power Advanced Biological Microscope from Amazon. Folks, this is a GREAT scope for the money and I highly recommend it if you are looking for something solid with excellent optics without spending a fortune! You can read my review of this great product in my reviews section. After using the scope for a few sessions and being thoroughly satisfied, I found myself still longing for that computer interface option. I then searched the web for a stand alone USB microscope camera and was pleased to see that there were such things on the market! My first search brought up a link to this product here on Amazon.com. The fact that it was made by Celestron was a good omen and I figured that it should mate to my scope without too much trouble. (Turned out to be totally true!)
As I said earlier in my review, I was a bit skeptical on the quality based on the price and some of the low review scores this thing had received. But, since low reviews on a product often say more about the reviewer's skills to read and follow instructions than they do about the product's quality, I went ahead and ordered myself one. After waiting for what seemed like an eternity *, the device arrived today and within 5 minutes I had the imager installed in the adapter ring and sitting on top of my 44104 in place of the eyepiece.
I am using a Macintosh computer and as usual the Mac support from Celestron was practically nonexistent. This didn't bother me though because I already owned a copy of what many consider to be the best webcam software available on ANY computer platform. I am of course referring to the award winning "EVOcam" webcam application from EVOlogical. I plugged in the USB cable from the imager, fired up EVOcam and held my breath! My heart was racing as I pulled into focus my first slide.
In a word... WOW!! Not only did the image look EXACTLY like it did to my eye with the conventional optics, the imager was reproducing every byte of sharpness and brilliant color contained in the specimen under the objective lens! I really don't think you could ask for any more from an imager than this! With my 44104 now paired up with a great piece of webcam software like EVOcam, the sky's the limit in what I can do with this rig! How about time-lapse movies of a bacterial culture growing? The feeding habits of an Ameba of Hydra as it goes about its day? I kind of feel sorry for the PC folks out there that don't have a program like EVOcam to use with their scope and this imager!
So there ya go... Buy yourself a quality microscope first and then pick up this imager second for the ultimate digital microscope setup! As for the 1-Star reviewer's opinions here on this product page? I'll go with "UTTERLY CLUELESS" on a good day and down right idiotic on a bad one. I don't know if the scope they were trying to use this thing with was total garbage, or they simply don't know how to read an owners manual! Either way, their low review scores say more about their own reading and comprehension skills than anything related to this product.
* My only gripe is with the retailer who sold me the product. (Adorama Camera) It took WAY TOO LONG to get here! Come on people! 10 days? That is ridiculous! If you have a choice in which retailer to purchase this from on Amazon, CHOOSE SOMEONE BESIDES THEM! Unless you don't mind waiting 10 days for your imager to arrive in your mailbox. ;o)
5 of 5 found the following review helpful:
microscope imagerJul 27, 2010
By Judy Sullivan
This works great! Much better than squinting through a little lense. The camera installed and worked with no problems on Win7 64bit laptop. The only issue is that it seems to have some sort of warm-up period of about a minute or so where it will not show a live update of the image. After that it works just fine however. Not sure why it does this.
See all 19 customer reviews on Amazon.com
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