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Microscope Care & Handling Following several tips to properly care for your microscope will help ensure that your microscope lasts for years to come. When carrying your microscope from one location to another, do not pick it up by holding the stage, the eyepieces, or any other small parts on the microscope such as the objective lenses or nosepiece. Place one hand on the bottom of the microscop …

By following a few safety precautions and taking care when using your microscope, it should last for many years.  This article covers handling the microscope, cleaning the microscope, safe electrical use of the microscope and operating the microscope safely. Learn How to Use a Microscope There are a few tips to follow for safely using a microscope. When using microscope slides, be sure to …

In microscopy when using a stereo microscope it is common to use a LED ring light for illumination. You may have noticed that LED ring lights are available with polarization. What exactly is a polarizing LED ring light and why would you want one? What is a Polarizing LED Ring Light? A polarizing LED ring light is used to reduce glare on metallic samples. The polarized LED ring light has both an a …

This image of tartaric acid was captured by Harald K. Andersen in Steinberg, Norway. Andersen used a polarizing microscope with a wave plate. The microscope setup had a Nikon 10x objective lens and a 2x photo converter, which ultimately provided a total of 20x magnification on the camera sensor. Tartaric acid is a white, crystalline organic acid that occurs naturally in many fruits, but especially …

A compound microscope is often referred to as a biological microscope, but is a compound microscope always a biological microscope? You might be surprised at the answer. Read more to learn all about compound microscopes and their uses. The Parts & Function of a Compound Microscope A compound microscope is a high power (high magnification) microscope that uses a compound lens system. A compound …

Quite often people tell us the microscope resolution they need, but they don't really know what they mean by resolution. That's okay, as it is not necessarily a straight-forward concept. What is Resolution In A Microscope? In microscopy, resolution is a numeric quantification of how clearly an objective lens can image a specimen. More specifically, it is the shortest distance between two objects w …

Choosing A Children's Microscope for Your Student There are many types of children’s microscopes on the market and it can be frustrating trying to figure out which one is best. Here are a few things to consider when purchasing a kids microscope. Choosing the Type of Microscope For Your Kid: There are two types of kids microscopes: stereo (low power) microscopes and compound (high power) micr …

What exactly can you view under the microscope at different magnifications? Microscope field of view changes as magnification changes. In short, as magnification increases, the field of view decreases. When looking through a high power compound microscope it can be difficult to determine what you will see through the eyepieces at different magnifications. The images below were created to help you …

A customer recently asked Microscope World to help them determine what would be the appropriate microscope for their application. They needed to capture what happens to a metallic sample while it is being treated with a specific water-soluble compound. The customer was looking at the SMZ-171 stereo microscope. When we asked how large (or small) an area they needed to resolve, the customer said it …

Recently an industrial customer asked what combination of stereo microscope and lighting options would be best to view their circuit board quality assurance work. This customer's circuit boards were 4" x 6" without a lot of dimensional height. The circuit boards were opaque of course, so the lighting had to come from above the boards. What they needed was a solid, workhorse microscope, so we sugge …

How do you know when to use a microscope cover slip? And if you do need to use one, what thickness is appropriate? This post will answer all of these questions and hopefully help you figure out what mediums will produce the best images under different microscopes. What type of microscope are you using? The first question you should answer is what type of microscope are you using? Some microscopes …

At Microscope World we occasionally receive emails from customers who want to know whether we have a stereo microscope that can measure down to 1 micron. They mention stereo zoom microscopes they found on other microscope websites that offer 225x magnification(!), which would provide a field of view around 760 microns and allow digital measurements after adding a microscope camera. Indeed, these 2 …

So, you work in a facility which has a lot of lubricated machinery operating and you want to do some quality control work, just to make sure the large (and expensive!) machines are working well and not wearing out. Basically, you want to know if there are potentially harmful particles moving around within the machinery.  Spectrographic and automated particle counting analysis programs are hig …

Surface roughness inspection and quality control are two important areas of manufacturing, especially in the automotive industry. Visible surface defects including cracks, bubbles, scratches and inclusions can restrict the function of a product. Additionally, these defects can lead to failure or cause complaints from customers, so they need to be caught early on in the manufacturing process. Surfa …

On the outer layer of the leaf of a plant are microscopic holes called stomata. Stomata control gas exchange and water loss by opening and closing. Stomata are of particular interest to plant breeders because plants with smaller or fewer stomata tend to have lower levels of evaporation and can survive drought better than those plants with more stomata. Additionally, researchers often study stomata …