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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 …

Avoiding microscope repairs sometimes just involves a small bit of knowledge about your microscope. Here are a few pointers to hopefully help you avoid microscope repairs. Read the microscope instruction manual. Most people never read this and although it might seem boring and tedious, there is often good information in the microscope manual that can save you time and headache down the road. Do n …

Polarized Light Microscopy Polarization contrast is a contrast method to detect birefringence, which is a material characteristic that can be found in minerals, polymers, crystals, pharmaceutical samples, biomedical samples and even botanical samples. Birefringence is the optical property of a material having a refractive index that depends on the polarization and propagation direction of light. I …

Andrologists use a semen analysis microscope to view both the quality and the quantity of sperm to help determine male fertility. Semen samples must be kept warm with a heating stage in order to keep the semen living during sperm analysis. When viewing living samples, phase contrast microscopy is used to avoid harming the sample. Other samples are often stained in order to better view the sample. …

A common question when viewing a microscopy image on a large screen is: What is the total magnification I am viewing on my monitor?" In order to correctly calculate the answer to this question, we must know the answer to the following four questions. What is the microscopes objective's magnification? What is the c-mount adapter's magnification? What is the diagonal measurement of the monitor in m …

Have you ever looked through your microscope at a beautiful image in high magnification and wished you could capture more of the image than what you see through the field of view? Many microscope digital cameras have an image stitching feature that will allow you to do this. Some microscope digital cameras include software that has a feature specifically for image stitching. The way in which most …

Many upright microscopes have focusing eyepieces. These eyepieces can be adjusted by each microscope operator to ensure that the image is crisp and clear for their eyes. The focusing eyepieces adjust for any differences in vision between an individual person's two eyes. Properly setting up the focusing eyepieces takes a few simple steps and should be performed by each user, since the settings will …

Foreign materials in food need to be identified with a variety of food analysis methods for safety reasons. Food analysis microscopes are used to identify ingredients that go into prepared foods, additives, as well as undesirable substances including toxins or prohibited substances including glass fragments, metals, plastics, stone or even fragments from the food itself. A microscope is used to se …

Microscope World was recently approached by a customer interested in viewing their manufactured fabric knit under the microscope. We knew the FZ6 stereo microscope would do the trick, but were uncertain which microscope illuminator would work best. Our microscopy experts pulled out some microscopes and put the fabric to test. The first microscope tested was the FZ6-ILS2 stereo microscope. This m …