Another aspect about amateur microscopy is you can be innovative about the lighting system.
I've turned my stereo microscope into a UV microscope. UV microscopes typically cost in the tens of thousands of dollars. Much of the cost is taken up in how the UV light is produced and filtered out before it reaches the detector.
http://members.iinet.net.au/~sjastro/Standardsetup.jpg
In my set up which was designed to image thin or transparent samples, only a few hundred dollars were spent to modify the stereo microscope. The mirror came from a right angle finderscope and the UV filter is nothing more than UV blocking camera filter. The UVA source is a near UV LED torch.
Most of the research went into a finding a dispersion filter that didn't filter out the near UV light.
This tuned out to being an old Olympus camera focusing screen.
http://members.iinet.net.au/~sjastro/mysetup.JPG
The system has been successfully tested on imaging luminescent paint specks.
Regards
Steven