Microscopy is a large and diverse field and essentially involves the viewing of objects from as small as atoms on surfaces of solids, to larger objects such as nanoparticles, cells cell structures, and small insects or bacteria, up to images that are easily seen with normal eyesight. It is beyond the scope of this guide to give a tutorial on microscopy and microscopy techniques, but a rather brief but informative summary can be found in Wikipedia. The field of microscopy involves a large number of different microscopes all of which can use highly technical techniques. Sample preparation is also highly varied and can involve slicing, coatings, and staining and hours of work.
The focus in this laboratory is not on technique and sample preparation. It would be a nearly impossible undertaking to manipulate scopes and samples in a computer environment to teach techniques. Instead, the focus of the simulation is on viewing micrographs and images and interpreting what they tell us about the selected species. All of the images are real and were collected from various private collections and from the public domain. Correct attribution is given to the owner of each image when possible or available. In most cases, each image represents a tremendous amount of work. The simulation makes it rather easy to get access to these images, but in actuality each image could have required up to many hours of work in sample preparation.