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Welcome the Digital Age through a digital microscope! With its eight benefits to be enjoyed, all other microscope will look small in comparison, pun intended.

Integrated Illumination

With optical microscopes, the separate illumination makes for a more complicated setup and lesser precision in reproducing the same image. Keep in mind that a small change in illumination makes for a substantial change in the image seen through the microscope.

Not so with the digital microscope! Its integrated illumination means that preliminary setup procedures are virtually eliminated. Plus, you can reproduce the same image over and over again precisely because the illumination basically remains the same.

No Target Disassembly Required

To make setup easier, you don’t have to disassemble – cut up, chop down, process – the target since it can be studied as is, thanks to the portable lens of the microscope. Basically, it’s a point-and-magnify process where you just point the lens towards the target and then magnify it according to your needs. As such, you can make quick analysis of the target!

Finer Depth of Field

Of course, optical microscopes can provide magnifications of 1000 times. However, the depth of field suffers in comparison to a digital microscope by at least 20 times! If you want finer details of the target, you just need to adjust the focus and voila! You have a clearer and deeper picture of the target.

Depth Composition and 3D Display

In addition to depth of field, you are also provided with sharper images of targets. This allows for 3D projections that represent the target conditions at the minutest detail, which is not often possible with an optical microscope limited to 2D images. Think of the detailed studies possible of the subtleties of the target!

Zoom Lens Feature

Unlike an optical microscope with its knobs to increase magnification, a digital microscope has a zoom lens feature that allows for quick and easy magnification. You don’t have to lose sight of the target while searching for the optimal magnification at which you can study it in detail.

All-Angle Study

There are times when you simply must view the target at all angles without losing focus. In digital equipment like the microscope, this is made possible through the 360-degree rotational capabilities of the digital microscope’s camera. Other features like the multi-viewer system and the origin check function, if it’s available, also provide for said versatility. Easy Share in Real Time

In an optical microscope, everybody has to take turns peering at the eyepiece just to get a similar view of the target, which is time-consuming, to say the least. With the digital type, the image of the target can be projected on a bigger screen and, hence, many people can see the same image at once. This is a great tool in a class setting.

Easy Save

Unlike an optical microscope where the process of saving the images can be complex – from microscope to media to computer – its digital counterpart allows for direct saving on its onboard hard disk drive. And the best thing is that you can organize the images directly on the microscope!

So, with all these benefits of a digital microscope, isn’t it about time that you get one fro yourself?

CanScope – complete solution for all your microscopy needs.
Contact: 1-877-56SCOPE(72673) or info@CanScope.ca

Visit CanScope.ca for your microscope needs. All of their microscopes, from the student’s microscopes , to the research microscope to the digital microscope in Toronto are a joy to own. Buy now!

In 1953, the world recognized the scientific genius that is the phase contrast microscope. Forget high useful – it wasn’t just useful, it was crucial for actual live observations of intra-cellular processes like cell division.

Medical and biological sciences research are now focused on the real time, real life observation of living organisms to analyze its components and understand life better than we already do. Specifically designed for live specimens, this type of microscope enables observation of virtually invisible occurrences within a cell.

Obviously more advanced than the typical light microscope, this instrument uses the various refractive abilities of different objects to heighten the contrast between colorless and transparent structures. Under this powerful type of microscopy, specimens remain alive as they do not need to be stained – colored or dyed – to distinguish characteristics.

Light Waves and Visible Contrasts

Light waves peak and valley in regular intervals. The moment they line up, they’re said to be in phase; otherwise they’re said to be out of phase. This basic understanding of light waves is the key to how a phase contrast microscope works — it influences the optical path of light through transparent or colorless objects under observation.

Light waves passing through transparent portions of the specimen is slower then the uninfluenced light. To cause a difference in brightness, a transparent phase-plate mounted on the microscope increases the phase to half a wavelength, making the transparent object outshine its surroundings. This unique feature of phase contrast microscope makes it an indispensable tool in medical and biological observations of living cells.

How It Works

A phase contrast microscope makes use of two light sources — one under your specimen and another that is reflected off your specimen. Now, light passes through any transparent object but gets reflected off the surface of a solid, colorless object. When these light waves condense on a lens placed just above your specimen, it is easy to see if the light waves are in or out of their phase. This phase condenser lens on this type of microscope is analogous to the fluorescent filters in fluorescence microscopes; both make light differentiation possible.

Advances in Biomedical Microscopy Technologies

The latest in biomedical microscopy is the introduction of infinity-corrected phase contrast microscopes. Over the last decades, the largest manufacturers of research and/or professional grade microscopes have introduced this new type of optical system into various microscopy modules. This technology places another lens between the objective and the eyepiece and sets the object image to infinity. This correction makes it possible to introduce auxiliary components in the microscope.

This integrated capability makes imaging a an exciting part of the research. Now, you can capture, store, display — virtually do anything — with images of your specimen. With the flexibility of integrated digital technology, you can capture full color photographs or videos of your specimen and display, store and retrieve them from your computer. These capabilities produce virtually the same images on eyepieces and photo ports, allow you to hook up various types of cameras on to the microscope, which would definitely make training and demonstration more real life.

CanScope – complete solution for all your microscopy needs.
Contact: 1-877-56SCOPE(72673) or info@CanScope.ca

Looking for infinity corrected objectives in toronto or phase contrast accessories for microscopes? Whether you need that, a microscope filter, or something else, Canscope.ca has something for you. Check them out!

You have seen many Biology books to know that the microscope have helped us catch a glimpse of organisms, cellular matters, and parts of our body that cannot be seen by the naked eye. The microscope, after all, can magnify objects through the use of specialized lens and light. But what about objects that are transparent? How have scientists have come up with images of organisms that do not absorb light? How about those that are naturally colorless? The answer lies in a microscope called phase contrast.

Introduction to Phase Contrast Microscopy

Our eyes can only see colors of the visible spectrum and the differing intensities of light. Objects that absorb light are easy for us to observe because of these biological capability. Even if the objects are very tiny, it’s still possible for us to see them if we use a microscope. However, transparent and colorless objects, such as bacteria, sperm tails, flagella, and some parts of the cell, cannot be seen clearly under typical light microscopes. This is because light travels through these objects in a way that our naked eye cannot detect. Light passes through these specimens, called phase objects, slower and they are shifted. This change in phase cannot be detected by our eyes. This is why it would be impossible to study these objects clearly.

In the 1930s, a Dutch scientist named Frits Zernike developed the phase contrast method. He observed that it is possible to increase change in phase or shift in these transparent objects by half a wavelength. This was done by the use of rings etched onto plates of glass. The method resulted in patterns of interference. These patterns, in turn, made the details of the phase objects darker than the background. The contrast is increased and they become visible to the naked eye.

Phase Contrast Microscopy Today

Zernike received a Nobel price for inventing the method. It was a well-deserved accolade because he has revolutionized the way microscopy works today. Because of his invention, we have been able to properly observe objects that would otherwise have been impossible to analyze under a normal light microscope.

If it weren’t for this method, for example, we would never have known how cell division works. Without phase contrast microscopes, transparent and colorless objects are stained so that they can be observed under the microscope. This staining method makes them absorb color but it alters their components. It can kill some phase objects, too. Incidentally, killing phase objects also makes them more visible but it becomes impossible to observe their processes. Killing them often defeats the purpose of observation. With this technique, it is possible to observe living cells and how they divide.

Used with other modern devices, this kind of microscope has even made it possible to see the internal structures of these phase objects. Post-processing and other enhancement devices can now make us see what goes on inside transparent and colorless organisms. They used to be beyond the reach of technology but a genius changed that. Science and mankind has definitely benefited from this incredible invention.

CanScope – complete solution for all your microscopy needs.
Contact: 1-877-56SCOPE(72673) or info@CanScope.ca

Are you interested in knowing how phase contrast really works? If you want to buy the components needed to make a phase contrast microscope, visit CanScope.ca. They also have other components, such as infinity corrected objectives, fluorescent filter, and many others.