Cleaning Your Microscope

Caring for your microscope is essential to keep all the components working smoothly and maintaining the cleanliness and appearance of your microscope will help ensure clear visibility when looking through your eyepiece. 

It is best to only clean the eyepiece when needed. Use the proper cleaning materials which can be purchased on our website under the accessories category or from another independent retailer. If your eyepiece needs cleaning you can dip your cloth into an alcohol solution to remove stubborn spots.

The eyepiece and objective lens can obtain build up easily from use. If your objective lens is also dirty you can clean it with lens paper dipped into a diluted ammonia solution. Place a few drops of ammonia into about 1/2 cup of water. 

To ensure you will not scratch your eyepiece(s) or lenses refrain from using anything other than a special lens cleaning cloth or tissue. Do not use your finger nails to try to remove any spots or debris.
Click here to browse our selection of cleaning tissue. 

More on Darkfield Microscopy

Darkfield microscopy requires a special stand containing a reflective mirror and light shielding plate at a specific angle. The inverted hollow cone is projective of the desired image at an oblique angle. This process is the same for both stereo microscopes and standard compound microscopes. 

Good specimens for darkfield microscopy are those close in value to their background images. Small aquatic organisms and cells are ideal for such microscopic lighting technique. Specimens preferred for use with brightfield lighting are not recommended. Other ideal specimens for darkfield microscopy under a stereo microscope include bones, fibers, yeast, and hairs.

Illumination from brightfield lighting involves blocking out central light rays along the central axis. Blocking these rays allows for only oblique angled rays to strike the specimen resulting in a hollowed cone illumination of the desired specimen.

In darkfield lighting, contrast is greatly enhanced by the lighting technique at hand. Highly oblique light rays, diffracted by the specimen and yielding first, second, and higher diffracted orders at the rear focal plane of the objective, proceed onto the image plane where they interfere with one another to produce an image of the specimen.

We recommend our 1600X Darkfield Compound 9MP Digital Siedentopf PLAN Microscope
with 4 PLAN objectives and darkfield condenser. 

Selecting a Stereo Microscope

To select a stereo microscope you must consider these seven factors before deciding on which one is right for you. Keep in mind your specific microscope needs and/or wants prior to making your selection. Different fields of microscopy require different setting options, magnifications, and technical pieces and added accessories. 

1. Magnification

2. Zoom power

3. Eyepieces

4. Illumination

5. Lens Quality

6. Light Source

7. Accessories

Shop Stereo Microscopes: http://bit.ly/UotSp2

Read more on selecting a Stereo Microscope: http://bit.ly/14Ao11V