Northern Europe has been enjoying some fair springtime weather these last couple days, so naturally a (not really so) young man's fancy turns to — measuring the numerical aperture of his microscopes! He has been patiently waiting for a cloud free day.
The microscopes' lower, objective / magnification units all use infinity optics, so I mounted each one upside down, found a nearly collimated, natural light source, the sun, reflected it into the left and right optical outlets and measured the diameters of the focused beams, exiting the objective at maximum magnification:
I then calculated the numerical aperture with: N.A. = sin(arctan(beam-diameter / 2 / working-distance))
Here are the beams out of a Wild M3:
The horizontal scale marks are about 5.03 mm apart (rather than 5). Accounting for that, I measure a numerical aperture for the M3 of 0.75.
Here are the beams out of a Wild M7A (my M7S is similar):
This M7A is missing the accessory ring that spins onto the end of its objective; without it, has a 92mm working distance. (Has anyone got an extra ring?) Using that and accounting for the spread scale marks, I measure a numerical aperture for the M7A/M7S of 0.070.
Leica Microsytems told Walter P. at the Mikroskop Forum that the M3Z with a 1X achromatic objective has a numerical aperture of 0.075.
I believe these NA's of 0.07 to 0.075, for a ca. 90 mm working distance, were fixed by the common, 14mm diameter infinity optical paths chosen for the M3 in 1972.
Some Wild stereo microscope numerical aperture measurements
Some Wild stereo microscope numerical aperture measurements
Last edited by jfiresto on Sun Apr 07, 2019 4:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
-John
Re: Some Wild stereo microscope numerical aperture measurements
Very interesting. Will have to attempt that with my M8
Do you know what the NA should be?
Do you know what the NA should be?
Zeiss Standard WL (somewhat fashion challenged) & Wild M8
Olympus E-P2 (Micro Four Thirds Camera)
Olympus E-P2 (Micro Four Thirds Camera)
Re: Some Wild stereo microscope numerical aperture measurements
Given the pattern, I would posit 0.07 ~ 0.075 for the 1X, 87mm working distance objective.
-John
Re: Some Wild stereo microscope numerical aperture measurements
Thanksjfiresto wrote:Given the pattern, I would posit 0.07 ~ 0.075 for the 1X, 87mm working distance objective.
Zeiss Standard WL (somewhat fashion challenged) & Wild M8
Olympus E-P2 (Micro Four Thirds Camera)
Olympus E-P2 (Micro Four Thirds Camera)
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Re: Some Wild stereo microscope numerical aperture measurements
Does the NA not drop at lower mag settings? I know it does on some systems (macroscopes like the az100 or the leica z series), presumably since the objective is only really high res at the center where it counts at higher zoom settings, and stopping down at lower mags makes the ce ter match the lower resolution periphery while increasing DoF.
Edit: whoops I misread the 'maximum magnification' as 'minimum.' It has been a long day.
Edit: whoops I misread the 'maximum magnification' as 'minimum.' It has been a long day.
Last edited by Scarodactyl on Mon Apr 08, 2019 5:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Some Wild stereo microscope numerical aperture measurements
This is a translated extract from the Walter P. link:jfiresto wrote: Leica Microsytems told Walter P. at the Mikroskop Forum that the M3Z with a 1X achromatic objective has a numerical aperture of 0.075.
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Zeiss Standard WL (somewhat fashion challenged) & Wild M8
Olympus E-P2 (Micro Four Thirds Camera)
Olympus E-P2 (Micro Four Thirds Camera)