This, when held close to the eye, would enable the viewer to see an object being viewed in greater detail. And thus, the microscope was born. Leeuwenhoek had had almost no formal scientific education. He however went on to pioneer many other important scientific discoveries too. An ancient microscope Commonly used microscopes are optical microscopes that use single lens with different magnifying powers, which will depend on the lens being used for a particular microscope.
Optical microscopes use visible light to create a magnified image.
Double convex lenses, which are generally used in such microscopes, can magnify an object up to fifteen times its original size. In a compound microscope, two lenses are mounted at the opposite ends of a closed tube. Magnification is thus increased several times over and can even reach to two thousand times the original size. As you may recall from your biology lab class, objects that are viewed under microscopes are mounted on slides, or transparent strips of glass. We can take photographs through a microscope.