Articulating microscopes are special kinds of microscopes that are currently used with a number of applications these days. And their uses cover a variety of fields as well. Learn more about its applications from the article below.

When a person says that he is using articulating microscopes, it only means one thing. And that would be the fact that the microscope being talked about is attached to a movable arm so that it can be used for a wider range of applications at that.

Here are the important uses of articulating microscopes:

1. In hospitals and health care facilities
Articulating microscopes are primarily found in these institutions. Much of it is because microscopes are very effective tools in the diagnosis of a certain disease. Obstetricians and gynecologists use articulating microscopes to determine the presence of diseases in their parent’s vaginal or reproductive area.  It can also be used to determine the health of a pregnant mother’s child. Most of the articulating microscopes used in hospitals and clinics are equipped with a digital camera so that both the doctor and the patient can look at the screen at the same time during the diagnosis process. It also allows the doctor to explain clearly to his patient what the nature of her disease is.

2. Education
There are a lot of schools that equip their laboratory rooms with not only regular table top microscopes but with articulating microscopes as well. Articulating microscopes are mostly placed on specialized laboratories used by medical students. These microscopes are very essential because students have to be very adept in using these devices, especially if their field of expertise is along the line of internal medicine.

3. Research
Articulating microscopes play a big role in research as well. Sometimes, regular microscopes are not sufficient when analyzing a certain disease. Articulating microscopes provide for flexibility of the scopes. These microscopes have optics and lenses that can be moved around conveniently for certain samples that cannot be stirred at all. Articulating microscopes are mostly used in dentistry and medical research. It can even be used to create new tools meant for doctors and dentists.

4. Repair
Articulating microscopes are best used in repairing small items with equally small parts. The most excellent example of this would be watches. It is going to be inconvenient for the watch repair specialist to keep on moving the parts of the watch he is repairing under regular microscopes. It is very much easier for him to move the articulating arm of his microscope and focus it on the watch instead. Besides, most of these microscopes allows for a good working distance from the specimen. It allows the watch repairman to effortlessly remove the part that needs to be replaced without taking his eyes off the eyepiece.
5. Art Restoration
There are a lot of artifacts that are being recovered everyday. Most of them even find their way into art museums and similar places where they can be displayed and appreciated by a lot of people. But there are times that these pieces of art become so deteriorated they needed to be restored so that its initial beauty be brought back to its best form. To restore the fine details of a painting, it would be impossible to put it under the regular tabletop microscope’s lenses. And so an articulating microscope has to be used. The same thing goes for artifacts like small statues, figurines, rings, or headpieces.

6. Forensics Investigations
If you go inside crime labs, they don’t normally use tabletop microscopes, although you might still see one or two of them there. Instead, they use boom stand articulating microscopes. This is because with these types of microscopes, they can observe big and bulky samples. Most articulating microscopes don’t have built-in stages, so specimens can be placed anywhere under its scopes.

7. Documentation purposes
A lot of fields, including medical and criminal, require a good documentation of evidence or findings, either in the form of a printout or a recorded digital copy. In medical research and diagnosis, it would be a lot easier for doctors to treat a disease if a copy of the patient’s previous analysis is presented to them. In the crime scene investigations on the other hand, very small pieces of evidences, like hair strands and cloth fibers, play a very important role inside the courtroom. And that’s not going to possible without articulating microscopes to investigate it with.

These are the many uses of articulating microscopes. Thanks to these microscopes, a lot of new things, developments, and discoveries can be realized.