• Question: What is the resolution on the microscope?

    Asked by Jas to Deborah, Euan, Maheen, Rob, Stu on 21 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Rob Stanley

      Rob Stanley answered on 21 Jun 2016:

      Microscopes can have many different resolutions, and which type you use depends on things like: cost, whether it damages the sample you’re looking at, what features it can see.

      For example, an ‘electron microscope’ can see down to a resolution of 0.05 nanometers. That’s 20,000,000,000 smaller than 1cm.

    • Photo: Deborah Prunty

      Deborah Prunty answered on 21 Jun 2016:

      That depends on the microscope and what they are used for. I have two that I use at work. One is low powered, it magnifies things between 4.5 and 40 times. I used this one to look at unknown objects that might have worked their way any products.

      The other is high powered and magnifies things between 100 and 10000 times. This one is used for microbiology work, including counting bacteria.

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