Growing up, one of the coolest things I ever owned was a microscope, and I spent hours looking at whatever I could find under its lens. The microscope had a single eyepiece though, and what I didn't care for was the pain in my cheek muscle that came from constantly closing one eye, so I could concrete on what I was seeing through the microscope with the other. Celestron, perhaps better known to many for it's astronomy equipment, has made that problem a thing of the past by integrating an LCD screen directly into two models of microscope. The one plctured on the left below is intended for younger children, while the one on the right is a more sophisticated model that costs about $300. This microscope's optics allow it to magnify up to 400x, and using a digital zoom on top of that allows for a final magnification of 1600x. A built in digital camera allows discoveries to be preserved and shared, and the microscope can also be connected to a computer. Perfect for the budding (or not so budding) scientist in your life.
