Tag Archives: tissues

Light microscopy and electron microscopy

Image Source

This beautiful fluorescent image is from the isolated cells of the heart of a chicken embryo. The red cells are cardiomyocytes and the green cells are fibroblasts. Biologists use different types of microscopes for different purposes:

  • A simple light microscope (one lens) use visible light, that passes through a specimen, to view tissue samples and larger single celled organisms (eg. Paramecium and Amoeba). Specimens can be stained to improve visibility.
  • Compound Light Microscopes (with at least two separate lenses) can increase the magnification by multiplying the eyepiece and objective lenses. The image above was probably taken with a Flourescence compound microscope, which uses ultra violet light to reveal compounds that have been stained with fluorescent dyes.
  • Electron Microscopes (such as the Transmission electron microscope and the Scanning electron microscope) greatly increase the magnification by using a beam of electrons instead of visible light to illuminate specimens.