Compound Light Microscope Parts

Before introducing parts of compound light microscope, let’s see first

what is microscope,
what is light microscope and finally,
what is the simplest definition of “compound light microscope”.

Microscope is device that is used for observing and analyzing samples (specimens) that are not visible for human eyes or have not size enough big for necessary analysis.

With the development of science, nowadays different kinds of microscope can be found, depending on technology that is used for observing and analyzing.

Main types of microscopes (there are many other types and subtypes) are:

Optical
Electron and
Scanning probe microscopes.

Optical microscope is also well known as light microscope.

Light microscopes are the oldest, first invented and still most used microscopes.

There are two types of light microscopes

simple microscope and
compound microscope.

Simple microscope does not have opportunity for high magnification.

Compound light microscope (hereinafter – microscope) has two types of lens, separate by location– objective and eyepiece.

This technique provides opportunity for much higher magnifications which can be used for observing samples for different purposes.

These nine are basic parts of one compound light microscope.

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Depending on the manufacturer, there are several different parts of microscope, but main parts, present in every microscope are:

Eyepiece – the lens at the beginning, where the user looks through, usually with 10x lens. According to number of eyepiece lenses, there are monocular, binocular or trinocular microscopes.
Turret – rotating part where the objective lens are installed
Objective lenses – lenses which are close to the sample, in most of the cases there are 3 to 5 objective lenses in range between 4x-100x.
Focus knobs – two of them, for coarse and fine adjustment
Stage – where the sample which is observed is placed
Illuminator – light source for a microscope
Condenser – part for collecting and focusing the light from illuminator on the sample
Diaphragm – Regulates the amount of light reaching the sample
Base – mechanism that keeps all parts together

Further will be described the parts of a microscope that you should be familiar with, when buying one.

The online shops that were chosen are Amazon.com (as one of the biggest and famous) and Microscope.com (as most specialized for buying microscopes online).
Considering shopping filters on Amazon.com, compound microscopes can be differentiate (refine) by commercial parameters (international shipping, eligible for free shipping, average customer review, condition, price, discount, seller, availability) or by parameters referring only to microscope:

Magnification
Type (digital or optical) – Amazon.com differs to two types of compound microscopes – digital and optical.
Brand

If you want to buy microscope from Microscope.com, you will have possibility to choose from only one commercial shopping filter (price) and much more shopping filters by parameters referring only to microscope:
1. Category

Clinical & Lab
Home & Hobby
School & Student Microscopes

2. Eyepiece magnification (they offer only 10x)

3. Brand

Carson
Euromex
Explorer
Meiji Techno
Motic
Omano
OptixCam

4. Head type

Monocular
Binocular
Trinocular
Ergonomic

5. Magnification type (they offer only one type – step)

6. Objective lens

Achromatic
Plan
Semi-APO Plan
Semi-Plan

7. Illumination type

Halogen
LED
Fluorescent
Incandescent
Mercury Arc

8. Stand features (they offer only portable)

9. System type

Brightfield
Portable
Digital
Teaching
Specialty
Inverted
Darkfield
Phase Contrast
Polarizing
Metallurgical
Epi-Fluorescence

10. Stand class (they offer only pedestal)

11. Camera mount

C-Mount
Ocular Mount

As you can see, if you are beginner, for you is much easier to make decision when buying microscope on Amazon.com, logically, because it has much more commercial parameters for differentiating microscopes.

Also, if you exactly know what you are looking for, Amazon.com is again a perfect place for you. Microscope.com goes much deeper in classification and differences of microscopes, considering their parts and their characteristics. But, at the end, it must be taken in consideration that searching “compound light microscope” on Amazon.com gives about 6200 results and the same search on Microscope.com gives ten times less, or about 600 results.