Welcome to Compound Light Microscopes website store.  This site was created to provide high quality compound light microscopes for sale.  What is a compound microscope?  This requires a brief discussion of the parts of a compound light microscope.  First, there is the base that provides illumination to the specimen.

The specimen is generally on a microscope slide and requires transmitted illumination (light to go through the specimen).  The bottom halogen light bulb is ideal for this requirement.  Often, a Koehler field diaphragm is located on the base for adjustment of the light source.  The light condenser focuses the light on the specimen for optimal Koehler illumination conditions.  The stage holds the slide, and is often a mechanical stage capable of X and Y movement.  Focusing is done by coarse and fine focusing knobs that move the stage up and down in appropriate increments to properly focus the specimen in the viewing field.  Microscope objectives are located on a turret that is turned to select the desired objective.

The objective picks up the image and magnifies it.  The description of “compound microscope” comes from the idea that the magnification is compounded by multiple lens.  The first lens is the objective lens.  The next lens is the eyepiece.  The total magnification of a compound light microscope is the multiplication of the objective lens power by the eyepiece lens power.  Common objective magnification powers are 10x, 20x, 40x, 60x, and 100x.  The 100x is usually oil immersion and requires a drop of immersion oil between the lens and the glass cover slip on the microscope slide.

The head on a compound light microscope may be either monocular, binocular, or trinocular.  The monocular version has only one eyeport, while the binocular has two.  The trinocular head has an extra port dedicated for photography or video microscopy.  We provide all types of compound light microscopes.  Please contact us today for a recommendation.  Our skilled microscopists will be able to review with you the different features of the compound light microscopes.