What is a Dissecting Microscope?

A dissecting microscope is a low power stereoscopic microscope that is used in many applications such as in the field of biology, diagnosis as well as a wide range of other applications especially in the industrial field. This microscope is mostly used in animal dissecting laboratory experiments so it became known as “dissecting” microscope.

A low power dissecting microscope is characteristic for its two separate lens system. These lenses are from two separate component microscopes that are mounted at an angle enough to produce a three-dimensional vision to the naked eye. The lens system is not parallel and each of them produces an image that it feeds to its respective position. The left eye receives an image from the left lens while the right eye receives its lot from the right lens. What results is a three-dimensional view or a greater depth perception of the image which is very important in some applications such as surgery, small dissections, gemstone evaluations and many more.

Dissecting microscopes usually have incident lighting or an illumination coming from an above light source. This is the standard lighting used as opposed to other microscopes that use transmitted (or coming from below) lighting. A suitable light source should be an intense one since there are already fibre optic devices that avoid too much exposure of the specimen to the heat coming from such light sources. There are also ‘ring illuminators’ that trims down the shadow produced by the light source.

These low power stereoscopes use zoom magnification objective lenses than those fixed magnification ones. Objective lenses with a fixed magnification are conventional and allow less variety to the viewer. The zoom feature of objective lenses creates a wide range of magnifications that the user can choose from. The user can focus on the image of the specimen at a desired magnification unlike the limited options of a fixed magnification. The magnification power of these low power dissecting microscopes are usually from 1x to 100x. If you are planning to buy a budget-friendly low power binocular microscope, expect that it will have a lower magnification power.

There are many types of low power stereo microscopes. Cheap and budget-friendly versions are simply with binocular or two eyepieces while high grade ones have a trinocular port so that a camera can be attached for taking images and videos.

Dissecting microscopes are also useful in a lot of microscope activities aside from being used in laboratory experiments. In research laboratories, it is used for close observation of microbiological cultures and many more microorganisms. Microsurgery uses dissecting microscopes to enable the surgeons repair nerves and even blood vessels. In non-biological applications, dissecting microscopes are used in gemstone evaluations as well as in micro-electronics.

The dissecting microscope is a type that can easily be used by children or students because of its simple operating functions. They are one of the foremost types of microscopes that children get acquainted with. A simple low power dissecting microscope can be used to observe nature items such as rocks, plant parts and even kitchen finds. There are a lot of things that can be learned from using a dissecting microscope by a student during the children’s microscope activity.