MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

So an Olympus AX microscope has a slide assembly option that can put what I thought was a beam narrowing two lens assembly in front of a halogen lamp. There is also a U-UCV that dovetails onto the lamp between the lamp and the microscope.

But the AX-UCV seems to diverge the light. Here two laser lines become further apart, two irises are supposed to follow, field stop and aperture stops.

The UCV dovetail adapter does -- I don't know what it is doing.

Both have a large 35mm near the light and 30mm away a 12mm double negative lens. The large one is a meniscus curving out to the lamp for the U-UCV. The AX-UCV does not have so much curvature, but I did not open it too look.

From a user's point of view what is this for? I thought it was to narrow the lamp's beam down. I guess the lamp would have lenses to adjust in it, so would this narrow the beam if the light were not collimated like the two lasers here?

Here's a picture of the part and wear it fits in:

Regarding your laser source, it is not clear to me, do the rays projecting the two lines lie in parallel planes? In other words, is the perpendicular distance between the two projected lines always the same and independent of the distance from the laser source to the surface they are project onto?

hans wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 23, 2020 2:41 am

Regarding your laser source, it is not clear to me, do the rays projecting the two lines lie in parallel planes? In other words, is the perpendicular distance between the two projected lines always the same and independent of the distance from the laser source to the surface they are project onto?

Yes the picture with the two lines horizontal is without the lens 1 cm (sure there is a slight divergence -- it's an educational toy laser) and the vertical lines in the other picture are going through the UCV lens once slide over into place. The lines diverge drastically. In this case at that particular distance, the parallel lines (planes really) have diverged to double the spacing, 2+cm.

I'm trying to figure out why as a user would I want that? So maybe the halogen lamp shoots light into the large intake lens ina converging cone, then this UCV lens collimates. But then there is a UCV adapter that dovetails onto the lamp and then gets clamped onto the back of the microscope. I thought it was to narrow the beam for epi-flour.