I was wondering if anyone knows of any books that give information on how to culture bacteria for observing under the microscope? Is a cetrifuge essential equipment for a hobby microscopist?

No, a centrifuge is not essential or even usefull in dealing with a microscope. But here are some good books:

 

Osborne Internet linked complete book of the Microscope (osborne)

 

Scientific American Amateur Biologist (little dated though)

 

Adventures with a microscope (Headstrom)

 

Cliffs Notes Microbiology (actually pretty good if not archaic)

 

Learning about Microbes: A laboratory manuel (EPBASM)

 

Also search the internet, it is a great source.

i dont know much about such things but i do know that a centrifuge is used to searate things, form what i have seen in my life you can culture bacteria in just a litle dish =D

You can culture bacteria on a slice of potato, too. A centrifuge is really only useful if you want to do stuff with mammals or you're going to be isolating nucleic acids/proteins (neither of which are really hobbyist things).

Or blood. Any fluid with multiple parts really. The only things you really need are a medium (to grow the bacteria/organism), microscope with sufficient magnification, container for bacteria, bacteria itself. That's the bare-bones was to do it.

A potato is not a fluid.

I meant using the centrifuge to seperate different parts of fluids. Yes, I am aware that a potato is not a fluid. Do you take me for a republican?

Well, you can spell potato, so you're obviously not a Republican. Just a joke as far as the fluid thing.

Haha yeah I passed the acid test of politics: spelling.

A centrifuge is used to remove bacteria from a broth culture and rinse them. This is useful if you want to look at planktonic bacteria. If you resuspend them in PBS, it will slow down growth which is also good for study.