Proper Alignment and Adjustment of the Light Microscope

The light microscope is a basic tool for the cell biologist, who should have a thorough understanding of how it works, how it should be aligned for different applications (e.g., brightfield, phase-contrast, differential interference contrast, and fluorescence epi-illumination), and how it should be maintained as required to obtain maximum image-forming capacity and resolution. The principles of microscopy and step-by-step alignment and adjustment procedures are described in this unit.