Microscopic life is everywhere around you but, do you ever wonder what they looks like?

Andres Romero
September 30, 2014
Biology Lab (Honors) Period 9
Dr. Goffe
 Abstract

In this experiment we learned a lot about microscopes and about the parts of the

microscope. We did a lab and in the lab we got a slide and put it on the microscope and we

observed various slides like a grasshopper antenna, the letter e, color threads, and potato

from a fry. We used the microscope on low power and high power and then we drew what

we saw through the eyepiece. We also learned about the early microscopes.

Introduction

Microscopes are optical instruments used for viewing very small objects such as cells,

samples of minerals. In other words you use them for seeing things that you can’t see with

your eye because the image would need to be magnified hundreds of times. Anton van

Leeuwenhoek was the first person to make the first microscope and it was single lens

microscope which magnified objects up to 270 times their original size. Then later Robert

Hooke created the compound light microscope using two lenses. The eyepiece was a 10x

magnification and to find out the total magnification of low and high power you would need

to multiply the zoom on the eyepiece by the zoom of the low or high power. The total

magnification of low power is 100x and for high power it is 400x. There are stage clips on the

microscope to hold the slide in place and then there are the fine adjustment knob and

coarse adjustment knob. The parts on the compound light microscope were the eyepiece,

body tube, revolving nosepiece, high power objective, low power objective, diaphragm

coarse adjustment, fine adjustment knob, lamp, and the base. The most important parts of

the microscope are the eyepiece, the revolving nosepiece and the objective lenses. Also the

lamp to see the specimen. The nosepiece holds the objective lenses, and rotates so that the
different objective lenses can be moved in line with the specimen and the eyepiece. The

coarse adjustment knob is the large knob used for focusing with the low power objective

lens. The fine adjustment knob is used for focusing with the high power objective and for

final focusing with low power objective. The lamp directs light to the specimen on the stage.

The eyepiece is used for observing the specimen. In professional laboratories they have

microscopes called electron microscopes that can magnify images up to 250,000 times

because instead of light beams they have an electron beam and electromagnetic lenses.

Methods

Many observations were made during this lab like how to hold a microscope properly, how

to draw a specimen in detail by looking at it in the microscope, and how positions of objects

are viewed differently when moving the specimen. When we started to draw the specimens

we had to adjust the eyepiece until we saw the specimen. Before that we had to learn how

to actually use the microscope by adjusting and focusing on the specimen with the knobs.

After that we got our specimen and used it to draw a sketch of it and it turned out well. We

also drew the letter e, color threads, and a piece of a fry. When we did the potato we used a

knife or toothpick to cut off tiny pieces of the fry and put it on the slide. Then we put a drop

of water and then we put the coverslip on top. When you put the coverslip down you have

to put it at a 45 degree angle so that no air bubbles come out in the specimen. When we

were drawing the color threads there were three threads intersecting and we had to focus to

each one to see them because of the depth of view. First we drew it on low power and on

high power we really had to separate them by focusing to see which one is on top of the

other. The materials that we used in these observations were a microscope, slides of a
grasshopper antenna, color threads, the letter e, and potato from a fry, we also used fries

and pencils to sketch out the detailed picture of the specimens. In the manual it teaches you

about the depth of view, microscope positions, and how to use stains to help with your

Microscopic work.

Results

As a result the color threads intersected and mixed in the middle and each time we focused

the microscope a different color thread would be focused allowing me to draw it in great

detail. Then the same thing goes for the potato from the fry.

Color Threads Low Power 100x Potato Starch Low Power 100x

As you can see the yellow thread was in focus and the other two were kind of blurry and

that is because of the depth of view that only allows your eye to focus on one object at a

time. In order to focus on the other two threads you would have to adjust the microscope’s

coarse or fine adjustment knobs. This was a very interesting observation because now you

know a lot more about microscopes and their depth of view. There was supposed to be

another sketch of the potato starch that is stained but I didn’t get to that. In the manual it
says that most objects in the microscope are transparent and colorless so stains are used for

a more detailed observation of the specimens.

Discussion

In conclusion, the observations we made about the specimens were followed by a lot of

important methods and if you don’t listen things can go wrong easily. The only mistakes I

made were when I drew the pictures of the specimen because you have to use the different

types of scopes on the revolving nosepiece. When Anton van Leeuwenhoek saw bacteria,

protozoa, yeast cells, and blood cells for the first time he was very amazed. He found out

that there were many different types of microscopic life to see out there. The two types of

microscopes are the light microscopes and the modern life electron microscopes. The light

microscope was a good microscope because it allowed people to see the microscopic and

see them running, floating, or swimming around. The modern day electron microscope was

at least 1000 times more powerful than the light microscope and it allowed people to see

objects as small as 0.5 nanometers. The only thing wrong was that it couldn’t see the

microscopic life actually move around so if they could make a new microscope that allowed

that and allowed that you can see an object up to 0.5 nanometers small. Microscopes are

very important because without them we wouldn’t know about a lot of things such as cells

and even how our own blood would look like. That is why microscopes are very important

and you have to be very careful with them. When doing this lab you should learn what the

position of an object is when viewed through a light microscope, how to adjust the

diaphragm correctly to achieve light on high and low power, learn to locate objects in the
depth of field, use stains to help you see the specimen better, and compare the area of view

under low and high power magnification.

Literature Cited

https://www.google.com/search?q=potato+starch+under+microscope

https://www.google.com/search?q=colored+threads+microscope

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/microscope/+

Techniques for better microscope use manual