Microscope Parts - Key Notes

Part of microscope	Function
Foot	The base
Limb	Situated at the rear, joins the foot to the eye piece
Body	Houses the electrical & mechanical workings
Stage	Holds the slide for examination
Mechanical stage	An assembly that allows the slide holder to be moved left or right & up or down
Substage condenser	Focuses an image of the light source upon the object
Iris diaphragm	An aperture that modifies the amount of light reaching the object
Light source	Usually a 6V Halogen filament bulb located in the base
Coarse focus	Racks the stage up and down, also called the gross focus
Fine focus	Adjusts visualisation of the object
Nose piece	Holds the objective lenses
Transformer	Modifies the intensity of the light source
Rheostat	Controls the transformer
Prisms	Deflect the light path through the ocular lenses mounted in the eye pieces
Objective lenses	The magnifying lenses: usually 4x scanning, 10x low power, 40x high dry & 100x oil immersion (high power)
Vernier scale	The position finding device enabling relocation of a set point

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