Olympus BH2-UMA- what does it do?

[Kinetochore]

I've UTSE here, I've done some googling, I even have the manual and an exploded parts diagram. But I still can't work out this thing's capacity. As a n00b the manuals are entirely incomprehensible to me

Barn find from a mate's auction house purchase. Olympus CSS fitted with an Olympus BH2-UMA vertical illuminator

Rough as guts and twice as filthy. It may be past rescuing

If it can be used for fluorescence microscopy to visualise chromosomes at least, I'm prepared to put more resources into it than I would otherwise

[Scarodactyl]

It is meant for metallurgical usage. It also converts the microscope to an infinity system. It won't do for fluorescence.
It is very nice for epi work. Oddly yours is missing thr cheaper fixed analyzer but not the rarer and more expensive rotatable polarizer.

[PeteM]

To add, two cubes were made for this. One for brightfield and the other for darkfield. Do you have one or both of those?

You'll also need a light source. 50 watt Olympus ones are fairly commonly available. You can also do a LED retrofit.

The BH2-UMA can be used for epi brightfield and darkfield, plus episcopic pol with the polarizers -- and DIC with the proper nosepiece and prisms.

[Kinetochore]

Darn. I was hoping we could use it. No good to us as biologists. But thank you!!

Would it be any good for gemstone analysis? Super long shot I know, but if it's only for metallurgy it'll probably go back in the shipping container until we have a use for it

Is the polariser worth stripping off and putting on one of our other Olympus EHT for biologicals?

There's a cube and a light source, think the cube is pictured in the bottom of the OP

Didn't want to post too many pics at once so as to stay below the limit- below are some more of the light source bits we have

It's absolutely fascinating and humbling to start again as a noob at almost 60. The curve is still the same, regardless of age or experience. I did some googling and thought " it's just microsopy, they sell em on ebay, looks easy, how hard can it be..." and the floor opened up and swallowed me and I don't understand more than 10% of the technical aspects. Thanks for your patience

[Scarodactyl]

Not ideal for gemstones outside of some extreme edge cases. But worth a decent amount of it's clean and working. I doubt it would have parts compatibility, that polarozer is made specially for this system.