Noob question about the stage.

airbrn1187 · Post by **airbrn1187** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 2:18 am

I looked all over and could not find the answer I was looking for. How does one read the numbers on the microscope stage? If I remember correctly it is like a vernier caliper, but am not 100% certain. If so is their a website or link with instructions. Once again thank you in advance.

BJ · Post by BJ » Mon Feb 13, 2012 9:45 am

hi,

I think that this will help:

http://www.practicalscience.com/microscopy2.html

good luck

Brian

Tom Jones · Post by **Tom Jones** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 12:14 pm

airbrn1187

Using the vernier scales to read slide coordinates is an underappreciated skill, even in labs where there are a lot of referrals. The short article Brian linked to provides a very nice explanation of the process. I must admit

I never considered a way to convert the coordinates from one microscope to another. By the time I woke up to their usefullness, we had identical Olympus BX's with identical slide holders so there was no conversion necessary.

I think I would rather, if possible, use the upper right and lower left corners of the slides as base coordinates instead of the coverslip corners. There are two reasons for this. First, once you make the initial corner measurements you don't need to repeat it each time for a new slide, and second, the vast majority of slides I've looked at over the years were either Wright's stained blood or body fluid smears, and Gram Stains in microbiology. Neither are normally coverslipped!

Tom

airbrn1187 · Post by **airbrn1187** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 1:08 pm

That is exactly what I was looking for thank you very much. I don't know how many searches I did I could not find that. Thanks