How to Add Improvements to Microscopes

Microscopes provide the user with a window into worlds invisible to the naked eye. Studying nature through a microscope can be a fascinating activity. What a microscope can do is limited by its quality as well as by its magnifying power. Since the lenses that produce the image, the simplest improvements to microscopes include those involving the lens system. Lenses may be replaced or switched in order to produce a better image, to increase magnifying power or both.

• 1

  Unscrew the low-power objective lens turning it counter-clockwise. Remove the lens from the nosepiece of the microscope. Repeat this procedure with the remaining objective lenses.

• 2

  Install the new objective lenses in the nosepiece of the microscope by screwing them in clockwise.

• 3

  Remove the eyepiece lens. In some microscopes, this lens is held in by gravity and can simply be lifted out of the body tube of the microscope. Other models use a small screw to hold the eyepiece lens in place. If present, loosen the screw just enough that the lens comes out.

• 4

  Install a new eyepiece lens in the microscope. If a small screw is used to retain the lens, tighten the screw just enough that the lens can still rotate but not be lifted out.