OBSERVING

MICROORGANISMS
THROUGH A MICROSCOPE
LEARNING OBJECTIVE
 List the units used to measure microorganisms.
Diagram the path of light through a compound microscope.
Define total magnification and resolution.
Identify a use for darkfield, phase-contrast, differential interference
contrast, fluorescence, confocal, two-photon, and scanning acoustic
microscopy, and compare each with brightfield illumination.
Explain how electron microscopy differs from light microscopy.
 Identify uses for the transmission electron microscope (TEM),
scanning electron microscope (SEM), and scanned-probe
microscopes.
Light Microscopy

Light microscopy refers to the use of any

kind of microscope that uses visible light
to observe specimens. Here we examine
several types of light microscopy.
Compound Light Microscopy

A modern compound light microscope (LM) has a

series of lenses and uses visible light as its source
of illumination. With a compound light
microscope, we can examine very small
specimens as well as some of their fine detail. A
series of finely ground lenses forms a clearly
focused image.