fuck the fucking microscopes and the fucking trichomes and their amberness.
Learn to recognize when a plant is ready for harvest by its appearance.
Orange/brown, shriveled pistils; little to no young white upright pistils, swollen calyxes; robust & full buds; tiny sugar leaves poking out from clusters of swollen frosty calyxes, change in leaf color and vigor; maxed out growth....
If you must use your pocket microscope, wait until the plant actually looks ready for harvest. There is not point looking at trichomes until then.
If it is your first grow and you want to find out what a plant that is ready for harvest looks like, wait until you think they are ready. Then wait another 3 weeks. You wont need your microscope after that. Unless you want to look like someone who wants to look like someone who needs a 60x magnifier to harvest a plant.
To be fair, I was once scouring the internet for anything or anyone that would tell me that my plants were ready at 8 weeks. Even though they had white pistils all over and looked more like Mr Bean than Mr T. I have harvested early and was happy with what i got. Then, next grow, I waited. And waited an extra week. And then I understood.
Now I devote my life to warning kids of the dangers of pocket microscopes and trichome gazing.
And yes. I had...have a 60x pocket scope. I like to look at my arm hairs with it now. Wow. That is what a hair looks like up close????