Topic summary
Light microscopy
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Optical microscope.
Fluorescence microscopy
Modern biological microscopy depends heavily on the development of fluorescentprobes for specific structures within a cell. In contrast to normal transilluminated light microscopy, in fluorescence microscopy the sample is illuminated through the objective lens with a narrow set of wavelengths of light. This light interacts with fluorophores in the sample which then emit light of a longer wavelength. It is this emitted light which makes up the image.