Microscope Carrying Case

Microscope carrying cases are great for carrying a microscope into the field, traveling on an airplane, or even just for microscope storage. Microscope carrying cases come in a number of different sizes and are made for use with everything from smaller student microscopes to larger digital dissecting microscopes.

Phytology and Zoology Microscope Prepared Slides

Captured at 400x magnification, this fern gametophyte was captured using the National Optical DC5-163 digital biological microscope. A fern gametophyte is formed when the spore wall cracks under appropriate moist conditions. The fern gametophyte is the intermediate stage from the spore to adult fern, and has only half the genetic material of the adult fern.

Also captured at 400x magnification with a digital microscope, this image of hydrodictyon is known as water net. Hydrodictyon can be found in clean, nutrient-dense water, sometimes overwhelming lakes, irrigation ditches and even rice fields.

These are a few examples of the zoology prepared microscope slide kit that can be purchased from Microscope World.

Microscope Lights Explained

If you are in the market for a new microscope, you may notice a number of different types of lights in microscopes. It can be confusing to differentiate between all the options. This post will help you understand the differences in microscope light bulbs.

Tungsten Microscope Light - A tungsten light bulb is generally the least expensive type of light found in a microscope. This type of light is bright and it heats up. If you plan to view any living specimens, the heat from the light bulb can kill the specimens and make them stop swimming.

Fluorescent Microscope Light - A fluorescent light bulb is a cool light. Perfect for viewing specimens that are fragile and temperature sensitive. The light is generally not quite as bright as a halogen or LED light and in some older fluorescent light microscopes, the light would sometimes flicker.

Halogen Microscope Light -A halogen light bulb is very bright, sometimes with a soft slightly yellow hue to it. The halogen bulb does tend to heat up, so again, fragile specimens might not be best under this light.


LED Microscope Light - An LED light bulb is the newest addition to microscopy lights. LED light bulbs produce a very bright, white light. They are cool, so no damage to specimens takes place, and the light bulbs tend to last a very long time before they need to be replaced.

The image above is a 150w halogen fiber optic ring illuminator, often used with a stereo microscope. Although this illuminator uses a halogen light, because the bulb is housed in the light box (with a fan), the illumination that comes out of the ring light is cool and will not heat specimens.

If you are unsure of the correct light for your microscope needs, give Microscope World a call at 800-942-0528 and we will be happy to assist you.

The Dog Hair Experiment

At Microscope World we are curious and love viewing different specimens under the microscope. The microscope expands the world we live in. Using a metallurgical microscope with reflected light, we took a look at some dog hair.

Image of dog hair was captured at 200x magnification using the MT7100 metallurgical microscope, a c-mount adapter and the DK3000 microscope digital camera.

400x Magnification.

A metallurgical microscope, such as the Meiji MT7000 series, allows viewing of objects that will not allow light to pass through them. A metallurgical microscope is used when a stereo microscope will not provide enough magnification (generally when you need to see micron size particles). Metallurgical microscopes look similar to biological microscopes, but a major difference is that the objective lenses allow light to shine down through them, providing plenty of light for a crisp clear image, at a high magnification.

Microscopic Creatures

One of our customers recently purchased a microscope digital camera adapter for the Panasonic FZ28 camera. The adapter has the equivalent of a 10x eyepiece lens built into it and allows the user to connect a standard point and shoot digital camera to the microscope either through the microscope trinocular port or through a microscope eye tube.

This is a Jaera Albifrons, part of the leach group. This tiny animal (2mm in size) lives in the high tide zone beneath stones.

Jaera Albifrons bearing ten eggs.

All images courtesy of Marianne Ligthart.

Ken-A-Vision Kena T-1050 Digital Microscope

Microscope World is proud to offer the Ken-A-Vision Kena T-1050 digital microscope. With 20x, 40x and 100x magnification, this microscope offers both low and high magnification for a range of uses. The top LED light can be used to shine light down on specimens and the bottom LED light will help illuminate slides at higher magnifications.

The Kena can be removed from the stand for handheld macro image capturing. Simply capture images by pressing the button on top of the camera. This feature makes field work easy. The Kena digital microscope runs on the power from the USB cable and 4 AA batteries operate the bottom LED light.

The Kena microscope won the 2009 IDEA Design Award for International Design Excellence. The IDEA competition is a celebration of the most innovative and exciting product and product concept designs of the year and one of the world's most prestigious design competitions. You can purchase the Kena Digital Microscope for home, school or field work from Microscope World.

$20 Bill Under Microscope

Microscope World recently captured images of the US $20 bill under a microscope. Using the Motic SMZ-168 stereo zoom microscope on the lighted post stand, the magnification was set to 5x to capture these images.

The Moticam MC1000 digital microscope camera was threaded onto the microscope c-mount adapter. The camera includes software and allowed us to view a live image on the computer monitor prior to capturing and saving the image.

The images turned out crisp and clear.