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| What does “useful magnification” mean? |
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“A lot helps a lot” – however, this does not apply to the selection of the “useful” magnification. By this we mean that you should not try to increase the overall magnification of a microscope by using eyepieces providing a high additional magnification (e.g. 16x) or other optical “after-burners” if the objective does not supply enough pixels at a low numerical aperture. On the other hand, you will miss fine nuances if the objective (e.g. Planapochromat 10x) projects very fine details onto the intermediate image, and you are using an eyepiece with a low magnification.
The following simple rule applies:
The overall magnification of a microscope should be higher than 500 times, but less than 1000 times the objective aperture. This will then be the range of the useful magnification.
| Resolving power: Practical hints |
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Modern microscope objectives from Carl Zeiss permit the theoretical resolving power to be also achieved in practice – provided that good specimens are used. However, it is often the small things that prevent success: | |
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