Smd

[muddyfox]

a nice microscope can do wonders even for us elderly

AMScope has some nicely priced microscopes from China that have decent optics and are built quite well.

I have one of these (well not that exact one, a chinese knockoff that looks pretty much the same).
It's the bees knees, I'm extremely satisfied with it, especially for the price.

[pickdropper]

Yours looks a bit different than mine.  Is yours a stereo zoom model?