Electron Microscope Unit

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Overview - Light Microscope

Light microscopes use glass lenses to focus light that is reflected from or passes through a specimen. They have an objective lens which forms a magnified image of the object and an eyepiece lens designed to focus the light into your eyes and magnify the image further.

A zoom microscope (illustrated opposite) enables you to see an object with light reflected from it at relatively low power.

Larger image

A compound microscope (opposite) is designed to look at thin samples (sections) through specimens and has a source of light underneath, focussed onto the specimen through a set of lenses called a condenser. With suitable lenses, they can magnify up to several hundred times.