Surgery/Slit Lamp Microscope

Surgery microscopes are identical to table top stereo microscopes but mounted on tall stands equipped with motorized foot pedal controls for hands free focus, and zoom functions. The microscope itself is usually so minor in size compared with the bulk of the support stand. In case of the slit-lamp (below), the positioning stage is normally manual.

 

If you take off the binocular portion of surgery microscopes, you have yourself a nice pair of binoculars that could show you the craters of the moon. The magnification changer is a series of Galilean telescopes with different magnifications. The Objective lens is a large achromatic lens in front (below, right) that bends the binocular path to the sample, and it can be changed to set the desired working distance.

The manual X-Y-Z stage under Slit-Lamp microscopes are designed for single handed joystick positioning of microscope. This is smart engineering. As poetry rides on, and strives off of some fantastically written verses, mechanical engineering also lives off of a few fantastically designed mechanics. Well, if you study this mechanism, you'll realize that you have found one of these beautifully written verses from the mechanical engineering's text book. Zeiss is not the best example, because the Swiss made Slit-Lamps are known to be the best.