Optical aberration

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Mical_Karina
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Joined: Thu Oct 21, 2021 7:44 pm

Optical aberration

#1 Post by Mical_Karina » Thu Oct 21, 2021 7:50 pm

Hello everyone! I´m new to this forum and I have a problem with my microscope. I´m trying to focus my slide, but the only area I can see satisfactorily is the one that is in orange. These are achromatic objectives, I know it should show me the central area focused, so I don´t understand this aberration. I changed my objectives and my samples but, despite all of this, the aberration persists. Can anyone tell me how I can resolve this problem? Image

PeteM
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Joined: Tue Dec 06, 2016 6:22 am
Location: N. California

Re: Optical aberration

#2 Post by PeteM » Thu Oct 21, 2021 7:59 pm

Even before worrying about aberrations, field flatness is a problem.

This could be caused by the specimen (but, you tried different ones), the objectives (but, you say they all show this problem?), mismatched eyepieces, a condenser not seated properly, the stage misaligned and slightly tilted, the slide not sitting flat, and so on. You could try pressing on the stage and moving and rotating various other parts to try to narrow it down.

What's puzzling is that in almost all these cases, you should be able to change the focus so that the small part of the specimen in focus appears in the center, the edges, etc. -- not just in that one narrow band you've highlighted. If the point of focus can't be changed, you might try seeing if the head is at fault??

apochronaut
Posts: 6271
Joined: Fri May 15, 2015 12:15 am

Re: Optical aberration

#3 Post by apochronaut » Thu Oct 21, 2021 9:10 pm

There is an odd yellow tint to the area out of focus, towards 1 o'clock. Does the problem persist with all objectives?. Is this a monocular microscope, with a single pointer eyepiece? If so I would be looking at a delaminated eyepiece as the cause.

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