The microscope was invented by Dutch spectacle makers, Hans Lippershey and his son, Zaccharias Janssen while experimenting with a variety of lenses in the late 1590s. This father and son team placed several lenses into a tube and discovered that it can magnify an object by about nine times more than its normal size. While their invention was beyond the potential of a magnifying glass, its produced image was unclear and blurry. The first microscope was recognized as a pioneering product rather than a scientific apparatus.
Galileo Galilei heard of this new invention and made a better microscope. In the late 1600's, Anthony Van Leeunhoek made use of a real microscope. His microscope had a magnification of 270 times, which during those times other microscopes can only achieve 50 times of magnification. This led to many scientific discoveries and people started seeing things in places where they seem to be empty.
Parts of a Microscope:
Eyepiece lens - Also called ocular is the lens at the top where you look through, its standard magnification is typically 10-15 times
Tube - This connects the objective lens and the eyepiece.
Arm - It secures the tube and attaches it to the base.
Base - It is found at the bottom of the the unit and it is utilized to support the whole microscope.
Mirror or Illuminator - It is the light source of the microscope and typically located at the bottom of the stage. This is used to provide light to the sample on the stage.
Stage - It is where the slides are placed. The stage has clips to hold the slide in place, it has adjustable knobs that move the platform left and right; and up and down.
Turret or the Revolving Nosepiece - This part grips two or more objective lenses and can be rotated to regulate power.
Objective lenses - There are usually three objective lenses on a microscope. The shortest lens has the lowest magnifying power and the longest one has the highest magnifying power. The longest lens is retractable because it has a spring in it in order to protect it from hitting the slide.
Rack Stop - The rack stop keeps users from breaking the lens or slide by preventing them to adjust the lens too low. Factories set this and should only be adjusted when using very thin slides.
Condenser Lens - Condenser lenses focus light to the specimen making images sharper. They are more useful at the highest powers.