14 DAY TRIAL // There are plenty of digital microscopes to buy online, but when it comes to a digital one that easily connects to your iPhone, the Catalyst seems like a great solution.
The Catalyst Microscope is about 3/4 the size of your smartphone and can magnify whatever you put in front of the lens up to 340 times. The most important thing about it is that is fully portable and cheap. You can still get it on Kickstarter for 89 bucks.
The Microscope is described as being dead simple. There's no need to manually focus after the initial set up. It has an LED to be energy efficient and it's powered by two AAA batteries. The inventor says the lenses won't touch your iPhone so you don't need to worry about getting your camera dirty.
If you pledge on Kickstarter for this little toy, you get a microscope that can magnify 4.5 times an 8-megapixel image. With the new iPhone models coming out, when the camera gets better, so will your magnified picture.
Who is this for? Long story short: researchers and kids alike.
If you are working for a lab and you're out on the field studying rocks or plants, you could be getting a detailed look at what you are interested in right there, on the spot.
Also, this is great as a chemistry or biology toy for young students who want to see for themselves what they could only learn from their school books.
The developer believes that building and selling this microscope is just the first step in building a platform. He wants to improve on his designs and get better at creating microscopes with higher magnification, better resolution and new features like fluorescent microscopy.
The first goal for the Catalyst Microscope was reached today. With four days to go, the project creator has setup a few stretch goals.
If the project hits $30,000 in funding, everyone gets a 1-micron mesh filter. That helps you get rid of all the water while keeping everything bigger so you can study some amazing microorganisms.
As we mentioned, the starting price for this device is $89, but there are a few more steps to consider. If you pledge $119, you can get 20 prepared microscope slides and 50 blank ones.
Go to the upper level of $139, and you will get a set of more powerful lenses and all the perks that come with the above-mentioned cheaper package.
The Kickstarter project ends on July 11 and the delivery is estimated for December of this year.