Friday, April 28, 2006

We separate light microscopes into two basic classes, "Dissecting ("Stereo") microscopes", and "Compound Microscopes". There are two major distinctions between the two: 1. You will view your specimen in three dimensions with a stereo microscope, not so with compound microscopes. 2. Compound microscopes have enormous magnification range (from 10x to 1,500x), compared to practical limitations of 5x to 200x with stereo microscopes. Compound microscopes can reveal detail at the cellular level.