Cell Counting Microscope

A counting chamber is a microscope slide that is especially designed to enable cell counting.

Cell counting microscope.

The charged counting chamber is then placed on the microscope stage and the counting grid is brought into focus at low power. Again multiply by 1000 to determine cell count per ml 250 000. Hemocytometers and sedgewick rafter counting chambers are two types of counting chambers. When using a light microscope to examine living cells you may want to calculate the cell density.

A hemocytometer consists of a thick glass microscope slide with a grid of perpendicular lines etched in the middle. Sometimes you will need to dilute a cell suspension to get the cell density low enough for counting. If using a glass hemocytometer very gently fill both chambers underneath the coverslip allowing the cell suspension to be drawn out by capillary action. Cell counting is rather straightforward and requires a counting chamber called a hemocytometer a device invented by the 19 th century french anatomist louis charles malassez to perform blood cell counts.

The hemocytometer has two gridded chambers in its middle which are covered with a special glass slide when counting. Using a pipette take 100 µl of trypan blue treated cell suspension and apply to the hemocytometer. Cells are the basic units of life and contain cytoplasm dna ribosomes and a cell membrane.