An unusual microscope, with 6-8 binocular viewers

[DQE]

Is this microscope, shown in a staff photo for a medical pathology lab, unusual?

http://www.spectrummedicalgroup.com/pathology.html

It appears to have 6-8 binocular viewing heads. How do they have enough light to allow 8 binocular viewing heads to work effectively?

Would this be better in any significant ways than projecting a digital image from a single high-quality microscope onto an HDTV or some other digital display?

[Pau]

Actually 10 binoculars +camera port , and the light source doesn't seem specially powerfull.

[rjlittlefield]

Would this be better in any significant ways than projecting a digital image from a single high-quality microscope onto an HDTV or some other digital display?

Well, in theory the purely optical system would provide full optical resolution, while the HDTV would be limited to its display resolution of perhaps 1920x1080.

But in practice, I suspect this impressive piece of hardware simply predates practical HDTV cameras and monitors.

--Rik

[Vish_007]

But in practice, I suspect this impressive piece of hardware simply predates practical HDTV cameras and monitors.

--Rikte

Multiheaded microscopes (8-16 duel heads) are standard equipment in most Pathology / Dermatopathology departments. In our facility we have 6 separate multiheaded Olympus (BX series with 100 Watt halogen lamps) microscope; we use them extensively during case sign-out and teaching sessions. Most brands of multiheaded microscopes (Olympus, Nikon etc.) have very good quality beam-splitters and light loss is very minimal, and quality of image at all binocular heads is excellent and better than digital / HD images.

[rjlittlefield]

Very good -- thanks for the info!

--Rik

[DQE]

I wonder if a simple estimate of what sensor (and display) pixel matrix dimensions would be required to equal the spatial resolution, etc, of a binocular pathology microscope?

If (for example) a 20-25 megapixel sensor is needed to match the fine detail, dynamic range, and other image quality parameters, does this mean that we would have to have a similar dimensioned digital display system to avoid the need to pan and scroll?

Since our shared interest in macro photography usually limits us to viewing approximately 1 megapixel images on the forum, we don't often discuss this set of issues. The best we can usually do is to crop a small section of a full image and post it to the forum. For example, people often crop a bug's ommatidia/eyes to illustrate how finely detailed the original image is.

My somewhat related work experience in the technical assessment of medical radiography leads me to believe that it would likely be very undesirable to only view a small segment of a pathology slide instead of the whole image at once. This may be an important part of why multi-headed microscopes are needed in a group viewing session.