The Brunel SP75 is made to a specification and standard designed to fill the gap between biological microscopes that can be converted to polarising microscopes and the full specification polarisation microscopes that are at a prohibitive price for the student and amateur.
This microscope is very competitively priced and manufactured exclusively for Brunel Microscopes. Budget pricing inevitably involves compromise, but with the SP-75P, the only omission from a full polarising specification is a Bertrand lens, which is used less frequently these days.
The Brunel SP-75P specification features:
Rotating monocular head with x10 widefield eyepiece and crosshair eyepiece.
Filter slot to accommodate the quartz wedge, quarter wavelength and full wave length retardation plates that are all provided as standard with this microscope.
Rotating graduated circular stage, with clamping mechanism and lateral adjustment which allows each objective to be positioned centrally in the optical path.
Triple objective turret, with an excellent and very positive indexing mechanism, housing x4, x10 and x40 strain free polarising objectives.
Abbe condenser, with rack and pinion focusing, filter carrier and iris diaphragm.
The fully rotating polarising filter is housed above the field lens with a swing out mechanism so that it can be removed easily from the optical path.
One of the most important features of any polarising microscope is the illumination system. Crossed polarising filters obviously produces a black background, and the brilliance of the appearance of birefringent objects is dictated by the lighting system of the microscope. The Brunel SP-75P has rheostat controlled quartz halogen illumination, with 6 volt 20 watt lamps located in an easy to reach lamp housing that can easily be accessed from the base of the microscope.
The built quality of this microscope is exceptional for the price. It has a modern design with stylish wrist resting inserts on the base. The low position coaxial coarse and fine focus controls are well placed for ease of comfort, and the fine focus is graduated to facilitate simple depth measurement.