Start here · Essential guide
How to Use a Microscope Properly
Learn how to use a microscope properly: carrying, setup, focusing, lighting, changing objectives, and putting it away without damaging lenses or slides.
Choosing and Using a Microscope
Using a Microscope
Focusing, Kohler illumination, oil immersion, troubleshooting a blank view and activities to try.
Can't See Anything Under Your Microscope? A Troubleshooting Guide
Why you can't see anything under your microscope and how to fix it: dark views, blank bright fields, blurry images, stray specks and binocular setup problems.
Fun Microscope Activities and Experiments
Easy, fun microscope activities for kids and beginners, from salt crystals and hair to pond water and onion cells, with simple slide-making tips for each.
How to Set Up Köhler Illumination on Your Microscope
Step-by-step Köhler illumination setup: focusing and centering the condenser, setting the field and aperture diaphragms, and what to do without a field diaphragm.
How to Use a 100x Oil Immersion Objective Step by Step
Step-by-step guide to the 100x oil immersion objective: preparing the slide, applying oil, focusing safely, fixing a dim or hazy image, and cleaning up after.
Using the Coarse and Fine Focus Knobs
How the coarse and fine focus knobs on a microscope work, when to use each one, why coarse focus is risky at 40x and 100x, and how to fix a stage that drifts.
What are some good microscope experiments for high school students?
Microscope experiments for high school students that go beyond looking: measuring cells, osmosis in onion cells, stomata counts, mitosis, and yeast.
What can a 1000x microscope see?
What you can see at 1000x, from bacteria and blood cells to yeast and cell nuclei, why oil immersion and stains matter, and what stays out of reach.
Why is E inverted in a microscope?
The letter e looks upside down and backwards under a microscope because the objective lens rotates the image 180 degrees. Here is how the e lab works.
Why Microscope Images Are Reversed and Inverted
Why a compound microscope shows images upside down and backwards, what that means when you move the slide, and which microscopes give an upright view.
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