Microscopy Thread

[christinna77]

2000x? With a light microscope? With very good objectives you can make 1000x work and have images of reasonable quality, but everything above will be very dark, and you won't be able to resolve more detail than what you were previously seeing with 1000x. The wavelength of visible light limits the amount of detail you can actually resolve.

I know microscopes theoretically can reach 2000x etc. by using a 20x eye piece and 100x objective, but as previously stated you won't get more detail, just a darker image, with less contrast and no additional detail.

It was this one: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0BYYY51HJ. 25x eyepiece, a 40x objective and a 2x lens. You're right about the image quality - I almost never use the 40x objective because even without the 2x lens, it's not great. I also have to get way too close to the slide, pretty much touching it to see anything. I think that's actually the only image where I tried to capture it with the 40x objective.

 

[EnterName]

It was this one: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0BYYY51HJ. 25x eyepiece, a 40x objective and a 2x lens. You're right about the image quality - I almost never use the 40x objective because even without the 2x lens, it's not great. I also have to get way too close to the slide, pretty much touching it to see anything. I think that's actually the only image where I tried to capture it with the 40x objective.

It's pretty normal to get very close to the cover glass with 40x, 63x, and 100x objectives, but a 40x one should not be touching the cover glass. Maybe you accidentally added two cover glasses at once? They sometimes stick together making it hard to differentiate if you have one or two in your hand. Another possibility would be that they are designed to be used with immersion oil, but this should be noted in the instructions or even better on the objectives themselves. To get the cover glass nice and flat on the slide you can absorb excess liquid by using a piece of paper towel that you hold closely to the edge of the cover glass.

With a better scope (and better objectives) the loss of contrast should change quite noticeably, but it's really difficult to find a scope for around $2000 that's good enough to justify the price while also offering ways to upgrade sooner or later. That's why I can't simply give you something you should buy sorry