{"id":15710,"date":"2022-12-06T12:04:02","date_gmt":"2022-12-06T18:04:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.coleparmer.com\/blog\/?p=15710"},"modified":"2022-12-06T12:04:02","modified_gmt":"2022-12-06T18:04:02","slug":"compound-microscope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.coleparmer.com\/blog\/compound-microscope\/","title":{"rendered":"What is a Compound Microscope?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>A compound microscope contains objective lenses.<\/h2>\n<div id=\"attachment_15724\" style=\"width: 111px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15724\" class=\"wp-image-15724\" src=\"https:\/\/www.coleparmer.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/cole-parmer-cole-parmer-compound-microscope-with-lcd-tablet-display-and-camera-67567.jpg\" alt=\"compound microscope\" width=\"101\" height=\"101\"><p id=\"caption-attachment-15724\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cole-Parmer Compound Microscope with LCD Tablet Display and Camera<\/p><\/div>\n<p>A compound microscope consists of a group of lenses (called objective) which focuses a real image of the object inside the microscope. A second group of lenses (called eyepiece) magnifies this image and projects it on the retina of the eye. This <a href=\"\/c\/compound-microscopes\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">compound<\/a> optical system (objective \u2013 eyepiece) together with other mechanical components are the basics of a modern microscope. The overall resolution and image quality of a microscope is determined by the quality of the optics and the light source.<\/p>\n<h2><a href=\"\/c\/specialty-microscopes\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Specialty<\/a> microscope types<\/h2>\n<p>Specialty microscopes provide options beyond what a standard microscope can offer. An inverted microscope has a long working distance suitable for use with culture vessels such as flasks and petri dishes. The light source and condenser are on the top of the inverted microscope. This placement on the inverted microscope allows for viewing living cells in a container instead of transferring the specimen to a slide. Metallurgical microscopes illuminate the specimen through the objective lens, which is ideal for specimens that don\u2019t transmit light. This type of specialty microscope can be used for metals, plastics, ceramics, paint, glass, crystals, and semiconductor components.<\/p>\n<h3>Fluorescence<\/h3>\n<p>This type of microscope is used to observe certain parts of living cells and tissues with the help of adding fluorophores to the specimen. When exposed to \u201cexcitation light:, the fluorophores absorb the energy and emit light in another visible wavelength. This makes it possible to distinguish different types of cells, to prove the presence or absence of antibodies, or observe submicroscopic<br>\nstructures of cells and tissues.<\/p>\n<h3>Darkfield<\/h3>\n<p>Darkfield contrast is typically used for unstained samples. The image seen has the appearance of a dark, almost black background with highlighted bright objects on it. These objects, because they are unstained, are hard to see with brightfield contrast. The applications are mostly biological samples, smears from tissue culture, or water-borne, single-celled organisms.<\/p>\n<h3>Phase Contrast<\/h3>\n<p>Phase contrast microscopes have phase objectives. These allow the visualization of living organisms that have poor, or no contrast. With phase contrast, the specimen does not require coloring that may cause living organisms to die.<\/p>\n<h3>Polarization<\/h3>\n<p>A standard optical microscope equipped with a circular 360\u00ba rotating stage, strain free objectives, a <a href=\"\/p\/motic-polarizing-microscope\/63588\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">polarized<\/a> light source, and a second polarizer (called the \u201canalyzer\u201d) to the light path between objective and eyepiece.<\/p>\n<h3>Metallurgical<\/h3>\n<div id=\"attachment_15725\" style=\"width: 161px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"\/i\/cole-parmer-msu-600-compound-trinocular-microscope-5-10-20-50x-metallurgical-plan-100-250-vac\/7890430\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15725\" class=\"wp-image-15725\" src=\"https:\/\/www.coleparmer.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/cole-parmer-7890430-compound-trinocular-microscope-5-10-20-50x-metallurgical-plan-100-250-vac-7890430.jpg\" alt=\"trinocular microscope\" width=\"151\" height=\"151\"><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-15725\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cole-Parmer MSU-600 Compound Trinocular Microscope<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"\/i\/cole-parmer-msu-600-compound-trinocular-microscope-5-10-20-50x-metallurgical-plan-100-250-vac\/7890430\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">MSU-600 (#78904-30)<\/a> microscope is equipped with specific attachments and optics for this material science application.<\/p>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2>Parts of a compound microscope<\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-15715 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.coleparmer.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/What-makes-up-a-microscope.jpg\" alt=\"compound microscope\" width=\"753\" height=\"501\"><\/p>\n<p>Need a <a href=\"\/c\/microscopes-and-magnification\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">microscope<\/a>?<br>\nSee our complete line of <a href=\"\/c\/compound-microscopes\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">compound microscopes<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>Related Articles<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.coleparmer.com\/blog\/2014\/04\/04\/how-do-they-rank-simple-microscopes-vs-compound-microscopes\/\">How Do They Rank? Simple Microscopes vs Compound Microscopes<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12323 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.coleparmer.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/CP_MA_Bottom_Blog-reminder-for-blog.jpg\" alt=\"Sign up for the blog banner\" width=\"600\" height=\"100\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A compound microscope contains objective lenses. A compound microscope consists of a group of lenses (called objective) which focuses a real image of the object inside the microscope. A second group of lenses (called eyepiece)&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":15719,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-for-the-lab"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What is a Compound Microscope? | Antylia Scientific Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Learn more about the compound microscope and specialty microscopes. 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