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L’occhio Della Mosca (
The Fly’s Eye) by Giambattista Odierna in 1644 CE. In that sensational book, the Italian naturalist provided the first detailed account of organic tissue – enabled by studying organic matter under the lens of newly invented microscopes. Now, the latest optical microscope technology is capable of imaging viruses that live in organisms.
Conventional Light Microscopes: Widefield and Confocal
Conventional light microscopes – widefield and confocal optical microscopes – can accurately depict image samples at resolutions of around 230 nm (widefield) or 180 nm (confocal) in the XY axes. On the Z-axis (analogous to focal length in photography), these traditional microscopy methods work at resolutions of around 1000 nm (widefield) or 500 nm (confocal).