Required practical 1: microscopes

• Optical microscope


  Used to look at cells on a prepared microscope slide
• Optical microscope


  • Has a stage to place the microscope slide
  • Has a light source (lamp or mirror) to illuminate the slide
  • Has objective lenses with different magnifications (4x, 10x, 40x)
  • Has an eyepiece lens with 10x magnification
  • Has coarse and fine focusing dials
• What you might see under an optical microscope

  • Animal cells: nucleus, cytoplasm, cell membrane, possible mitochondria
  • Plant cells: cell wall, cytoplasm, nucleus, possible vacuole and chloroplasts
• Optical microscopes have limited detail - cannot see organelles like ribosomes
• Drawing of cells should include a magnification scale