A compound microscope is a microscope comprising of an eye-piece and an objective situated at opposite ends of a hollow cylindrical tube. Two or more double convex lens is placed on the two extreme ends of such a microscope. The lower lens, lying close to the object being viewed is the objective and the upper lens, used for observing the object is called the eye-piece.
The magnifying power of the lens for a compound microscope is usually expressed in the form of diameters. For example, if the lens magnifies an object five times, then the magnification is stated as being 5 diameters (5x). The magnifying power of the objective multiplied by the magnifying power of the eye-piece gives the total magnification of the compound microscope. Typically the magnification of the compound microscope is between 40x and 1000x. The image one gets to view of the specimen is usually two-dimensional because only one objective is used at one time. The invention of the compound microscope is credited to the Dutch spectacle-maker Zacharias Janssen and Galileo, the eminent scientist.
The magnifying power of the lens for a compound microscope is usually expressed in the form of diameters. For example, if the lens magnifies an object five times, then the magnification is stated as being 5 diameters (5x). The magnifying power of the objective multiplied by the magnifying power of the eye-piece gives the total magnification of the compound microscope. Typically the magnification of the compound microscope is between 40x and 1000x. The image one gets to view of the specimen is usually two-dimensional because only one objective is used at one time. The invention of the compound microscope is credited to the Dutch spectacle-maker Zacharias Janssen and Galileo, the eminent scientist.
