What does the course adjustment do? Coarse Adjustment Knob- The coarse adjustment knob located on the arm of the microscope moves the stage up and down to bring the specimen into focus. The gearing mechanism of the adjustment produces a large vertical movement of the stage with only a partial revolution of the knob.
The fine adjustment knob moves the stage up and down to make the specimen you are looking through a microscope sharper. A microscope has 2 knobs - the coarse adjustment knob and the fine adjustment knob. These knobs are used so people can see a closer look of a sample on the glass slide.
Coarse Adjustment Knob
What Are The Parts Of The Microscope?
Mike already explained the use of coarse and fine focusing controls on a microscope. In older microscopes, the focusing controls consists of two sets of knobs, as in this 1950’s Olympus GB microscope.In that kind of setup the travel of the fine focussing is limited usualy to some 2 mm.
Coarse adjustment is used to focus the image on the microscope under low or medium power by using larger motions of the lens. (Note: Coarse adjustment should never be used during High power) The coarse adjustment knob on a light microscope focuses by moving the lens quickly. The fine adjustment knob moves it slowly.
The coarse adjustment knob on most microscopes is along the lower middle part of the arm of the microscope as shown in the image below.
The basics of using a microscope tells us that we should start with the lowest power objective first and with the stage at its lowest position.
If your eyepiece (s) on your microscope is built facing away from the arm of the microscope then turning the knob away from you will raise the stage and turning the knob towards you will lower the stage.
Some microscopes will come with a tension adjuster. This allows you to manipulate the tension of the adjustment knob to determine how soft or how hard do you have to turn the knob to attain the desired level of movement from each revolution of the knob.
Knowing the difference between fine adjustment and coarse adjustment knobs on the microscope is an integral part of focusing the microscope.