Microscope I -- Basic Mechanics
Living things exist far beyond our range of sight. Looking at these things can reveal a great deal about the world around us. We need a microscope to do this. This exercise is designed to help you understand how these devices word and hopefully this will be simple review. We'll be using a Leica BF-200 like the picture to the right.

Working with microscopes can be quite interesting as long as we follow some simple rules and take the time to learn about these machines. The mechanisms and the slides we use to look at material and life forms can be quite delicate, so let's take a moment to may sure we preserve all this equipment.

The Basic Microscope Machine

Microscopes, through the ages haven't really change to much functionally. The microscope to the left is a Van Heurck No.1 model microscope, c. 1908. Though it is quite old the basics are still very similar to the microscope you'll be using in class.

Parts of the Microscope
There are 6 basic parts to these two microscopes:
(A) The Eyepiece is the first magnifier of the object you're viewing.
(B) The Adjuster moves the eyepiece in the older scope or the stage in ours to gain focus.
(C) The Objectives are the final magnifiers of the object you're viewing. Often, if you take the magnification of the eyepiece and the objective you get the overall magnification.
(ex: 10x & 40x = 400x)
(D) The Stage is the platform for your viewing material. This, in our case, will be on a glass slide.
(E) The Light Source sends light through your object, through your objectives and into your eye.
(F) The Base,...where your scope should be resting on a table.

Cover Slipping
Basic operation of a slide and cover slip operation is depicted to the right. The viewing object is placed of the glass slide (often in water) and then the cover slip is placed on top of that. If your object is not in water, you'll need to get it wet before placing the cover slip on it. There are other techniques that we will use, but the cover slip technique is the most common.

Viewing the Letter "e"

We've all been reading for quite some time and one of the most common letters used in the alphabet you've been reading is the humble letter "e". This vowel was the most common letter in use until the invention of the internet, when "w" surpassed the letter "e" due to it's importance in web addresses (www.). You've been looking at it, but do you really know what your eye has been perceiving? Let's find out.

Today's Viewing Procedure: Recording with pencil would be a good idea here.

1. Today we'll be working with a prepared slide that holds the letter "e" at it's center. In the first view area of your note paper, draw what you perceive on the square piece of paper. Label that view "1x" for one times your normal eyesight.

2. Next, place the slide on the stage and view with the low power objective (4x). Center the “e” in your field of view. Note that the 4x magnification is multiplied with the eyepiece, which is 10x, so the total magnification equals 40x.
Draw what you see in Figure 2.

3. Move the slide to the left, what happens? Move the slide to the right, what happens? Up? Down?

4. View the specimen with the mid-range power objective (10x). Use the fine adjustment only to focus.
Draw what you see in Figure 3.

5. View the specimen with the high power objective (40x). Use the fine adjustment only to focus.
Draw what you see in Figure 4.

The end product of this lab should be a set of 4 drawings on one page of your Lab Notebook, ready for grading.

Reporting your Results

The Procedures above show you how to complete the procedure. Here we'll look into recording your results. Note that you can record your organized results on a specalized Cornell Note Sheet. In the end, you've always got to record your results.

There are four different views you'll need to record. First, you'll need to draw what you see with with your unaided eye. Then you'll record observations with the microscope looking through the first three objectives. The fourth is an objective for "oil immersion" technique,...we're not there yet. In the exercise, above, we'll be using the first view area for what we see with the unaided eye.

Be careful to also record your thoughts here under the heading "Descriptions. It is as important to write about what you see as well as draw what you see. In the end you're writing and drawing so that others will know what you're thinking as well as what you're thinking. Look to the example to the right and use this as a guide to get all of your observations on one page. We don't need to belabor this one. Future observation might use multiple pages for a lab session.

When you're done you'll need to flag this notebook page for later grading.

Done? Try looking at common objects under the microscope. One lovely object is a quick comparison of hair follicles from natural and dyed hair. Or, look at the lint in your pockets or backpack. Getting accustomed to this new world view is what this lab is about.

Basic Clean Up Routine!!!

You might imagine that if we all work with microscopes and we all use them as we are supposed to and we all wait for the end of class and we all do a poor job of cleaning up the lab area and the equipment is going to get pretty grungy, pretty fast. So,...we're going to have to be more regimented regarding hygiene during wet labs.

Rule #1: Water must be controlled, cleaned up and kept water off of computer equipment.

Rule #2: Equipment and slides must be left clean and in their proper storage places after use.

Rule #3: All stools, equipment and materials must be put away properly at the end of classes.

Simple, eh?