High Power Compound Microscope
Microscopes are instruments designed to produce magnified visual or photographic images of objects too small to be seen with the naked eye. An advanced biological microscope must accomplish three tasks which are to produce a magnified image of the specimen, to separate the details in the image, and to render the details visible to the human eye or camera. This group of instruments includes not only multiple lens designs with objectives and condensers, but also very simple single lens instruments that are often hand held, such as a loupe or magnifying glass.
Advanced biological microscopes or high power compound microscopes are used for viewing microscope slides containing biological specimens. Prepared microscope slides provide a quick method for learning about biology and how to use a microscope. Unstained microscope slides with living or fresh tissue specimens can also be viewed but may need an optional phase contrast kit for better viewing contrast when they are viewed under an advanced biological microscope.
A basic biological microscope contains twelve basic parts. The ocular is the eye piece. It is what you view through. It contains a lens of with a magnification of 10x. The ocular is attached to the microscope body. The microscope body, also called the barrel, contains a mirror to view the image at an angle. The arm of the microscope is used as a handle when moving microscopes. It extends from the body to the base. The microscope nosepiece holds the objective lens and is attached to the body of the biological microscope. The microscope objective lens magnifies by the power. The mechanical slate is where the microscope slide goes. This microscope slate can be adjusted accordingly. The diaphragm controls the amount of light that the biological microscope will use. The microscope condenser focuses the light on the image. The light source of an advanced biological microscope is used to illuminate the specimen. The coarse adjustment focuses on low powers while the fine adjustment is used to focus on high lenses. The microscope base holds the light source for the advanced biological microscope.
To operate the biological microscope properly, some simple steps should be followed. First, you must plug the advanced biological microscope in and turn it on. Make sure the advanced biological microscope is set on the lowest power. Move the microscope stage to the top position. Place the microscope slide on the stage against the corner. Adjust the stage of the advanced biological microscope. Use the microscope coarse adjustment to get the image in focus. Use the fine adjustment to see more specimen detail viewed under the biological microscope. The proper way to focus a microscope is to start with the lowest power objective lens first and while looking from the side, crank the microscope lens down as close to the specimen as possible without touching it. Now, look through the eyepiece lens of the microscope and focus upward only until the image is sharp. If you can not get the advanced biological microscope in focus, repeat the process again. Once the image is sharp with the low power lens of the microscope, you should be able to simply click in the next power lens and do minor adjustments with the focus knob. If your advanced biological microscope has a fine focus adjustment, turning it a bit should be all that is necessary. Continue with subsequent objective lenses and fine focus each time you use the advanced biological microscope. Finally move the microscope lens clockwise to move to higher magnification. Your specimen should be seen clearly in focus even when changing the power of the advanced biological microscope.