High Power Objectives for Your High Power Microscopes
Microscopes are an unavoidable way to get through biology, and even to sustain one’s career in the life sciences. The basic dissecting microscope is needed by scientists who work out in the field and who have no access to sectioning machines that will allow them to view their specimens mounted on slides and stained. The compound microscope is needed by scientists who work in the laboratory, and who do have access to such sectioning machines.
The compound microscope has been well improved through the ages. It has been given a digital screen that scientists can use to preview the field of view. It has also been given the chance to go digital, all by its lonesome: scientists can now mount a digital camera and capture still photographs or even videos of specimens. Because these digital cameras come with their own software, they can be hooked up to a computer, allowing scientists using the microscope to look at their photographs more clearly, label them, improve them, and even create a slide show or movie out of them.
There are still other microscopes that are used in the laboratory, and the ones with the greatest magnifying power are the electron microscopes. In electron microscopy, a beam of electrons instead of a beam of light is used to resolve the smallest details. Because a beam of electrons is extremely precise, scientists are able to see sub-cellular organelles and materials that would otherwise be blurry or invisible in an ordinary light microscope.
Electron microscopy, despite its power of resolution, still cannot give scientists the full picture of their specimens. This is especially true in the life sciences: some specimens will degrade in the presence of electrons, and the very first step in specimen preparation for electron microscopy, fixing and killing specimens, can change the configuration of many important cellular, sub-cellular, and even tissue materials. Electron microscopy, moreover, cannot be used to look at live organisms, which is especially important in the field. On the other hand, with its large size and the fact that it cannot be moved too frequently, the electron microscope cannot be used in the field at all.
In between the compound and electron microscopes, however, is the high power microscope. In high power microscopy, you can still view specimens without having to let them undergo the long and arduous fixing preparations that accompany electron microscopy. In high power microscopes, specimens sometimes need not even be stained: they can be mounted onto a slide, and then viewed with a phase contrast kit. Some high power microscope kits also contain kits that will allow users to view dried blood specimens, or even for looking at live blood specimens.
High power microscopes may come in binocular or monocular forms. A binocular high power microscope will have two eyepiece objectives, while a monocular high power microscope will have a single eyepiece objective lens. Some high power microscope models can also come with a third objective lens, and they are called trinocular high power microscopes. This third lens is for putting in a digital camera, which can be advantageous as it keeps scientists from having to remove the other eyepieces in order to insert a camera separately.
The objective lenses of the high power microscope are of course its crowning glory. The lower power objectives can be useful in selecting the field of view, but higher power objectives, such as the oil immersion lens, can allow users to magnify objects over hundreds of times. The oil immersion lens works by allowing the microscope user to place a drop of oil between the specimen and the oil immersion objective lens. This provides continuity to the glass slide, preventing light from dispersing, and focusing all the light beams coming from the specimen into the lens. Because no light is lost, the image is clear and even more magnified.
There are more advances being made in the field of high power microscopy. For instance, there are now high power objectives that can be used in the field of laser technology. Achromatic objectives are also being used regularly in this field.
For more information on high power objectives that will fit your high power microscope and your research or classroom needs, visit http://www.high-power-microscope.com. With a good high power microscope, you will be able to do your work better in your laboratory, classroom, or even your clinic. You only need to get the best objectives, care for them regularly, and do your homework on the latest advances in high power microscopy, and you’re all set for the grand game of work, research, and publish!
