Welcome to Gemological Microscopes, your online source for microscopes for gemologists. Our microscopy equipment has the needed features and options for viewing gemstones. Gemstones such as diamonds are usually viewed at 10x magnification for grading purposes, as specified by the Gemological Institute of America guidelines.

 A greater magnification is not necessary as the flaws and defects in the gemstone would be too small to see clearly with the unaided eye. So the would not be important consideration in the value of the gemstone. We can provide either the fixed magnification stereo microscope or the popular zoom stereoscopic microscope. The fixed magnification microscope has a 10x / 30x magnification. Either magnification can be selected by rotating a turret under the microscope head. The zoom stereo microscope has zoom optics that increase or decrease the microscope’s magnification as the zoom knob is turned. This is a handy feature for zooming on on specific inclusions or defects inside the gemstone for further evaluation and identification.

One feature that is required of a gemological microscope is having darkfield microscopy capability. All of our gemological microscopes are fitted with a standard darkfield light condenser. This darkfield condenser is a device that accepts the light from the halogen microscope bulb in the base and mirrors it to the sided of the specimen. This illuminates the gemstone specimen completely from the sided, and none from the bottom. In a normal stereoscopic light microscope, the base microscope bulb creates transmitted illumination that shines the light through the specimen. This is not the best method for viewing deep inside a gemstone.

The darkfield condenser creates brilliant illumination on the specimen while having a totally black background. The darkfield condenser’s stage is painted black to give this unique effect. Another standard feature of a gemological microscope is the addition of a jewelry clip to hold the gemstone in place over the darkfield condenser. Also, all microscopes for gemology are true stereoscopic, meaning the light paths of each microscope eyepiece are independent creating a 3D stereoscopic effect that gives depth perception. Our stereoscopic gemological microscopes are used by gemologists for identifying, studying, and grading gemstones of all types.

If you are a gemologists searching for the correct microscope for your needs, please contact us so we can further explain the features of all our models in the gemological microscope product line.