IMAGE GALLERY

See the detail.
Read the evidence.

Microscopy images invite discovery. Their meaning comes from the specimen, the signal, the scale, and a trustworthy source.

Explore the collection

Cropped confocal image of a cell on a fiber scaffold · NIST · Source and credit ↗ · Not Phoenix College data

01 / TWO KINDS OF IMAGE

Know what
you are seeing.

Acquired micrographs record an instrument’s response to a real specimen. Illustrations help explain an idea without carrying measurement data.

Each image below is labeled. Reference micrographs link to their original publishers and state scale information when the source provides it. Illustrations have no implied scale or specimen identity. None is represented as a Phoenix College micrograph.

02 / THE COLLECTION

A closer look.

Filter by image type, then open any image to inspect it at a larger size.

Showing all 13 images.

Grayscale SEM micrograph of crimson clover petal surface with a 50 micrometer scale bar — ACQUIRED REFERENCE · SEMCrimson clover petal
Surface texture recorded at 671×; the source image carries instrument settings and a 50 μm scale bar.
CDC / Janice Haney Carr; Betsy Crane also listed. Public domain. Source and credit ↗

Fluorescence-inspired illustration of cells with blue nuclei, cyan filaments, and orange puncta — ILLUSTRATIONCellular architecture
Fluorescence-inspired artwork illustrates how separate labels can make different cellular structures visible.
Generated for this site. No acquired specimen, instrument metadata, or scale is implied.

SEM-inspired illustration of a porous circular diatom shell — ILLUSTRATIONPattern at the surface
A diatom-inspired form conveys the spatial patterns that electron imaging can reveal.
Generated for this site. No acquired specimen, instrument metadata, or scale is implied.

Polarized-light micrograph of Yellowstone lava thin section with colored olivine and a 200 micrometer scale bar — ACQUIRED REFERENCE · POLARIZED LIGHTYellowstone lava thin section
Olivine crystals, plagioclase groundmass, and spinel inclusions appear under crossed polarizers. Embedded scale bar: 200 μm.
Brandi Lawler, University of Wyoming / USGS. Public domain. Source and credit ↗

Polarized-light-inspired illustration of colorful interlocking mineral-like grains — ILLUSTRATIONColor in crystal structure
Interlocking, colored grains suggest the optical variety visible in birefringent materials.
Generated for this site. No acquired specimen, mineral identification, or scale is implied.

Colorized atomic force microscopy height map of silver nanoparticles on an orange background — ACQUIRED REFERENCE · AFMSilver nanoparticle height map
Brighter areas indicate greater height, from 0 to 10 nm. The field is roughly 1,700 nm across; color encodes measured height.
MacCuspie / NIST. Source and credit ↗

Historic green fluorescence micrograph showing rod-shaped and ovoid bacteria against a dark background — ACQUIRED REFERENCE · FLUORESCENCEFluorescent-antibody stained bacteria
CDC’s 1959 image shows a mixed culture of bacilli and cocci under ultraviolet illumination. The source does not give a scale bar; this is not a confocal image.
CDC Public Health Image Library, image 12118. Public domain. Source and credit ↗

Green digitally colorized influenza virions against a purple background in a CDC transmission electron micrograph — ACQUIRED REFERENCE · TEMInfluenza virions in transmission
Digitally colorized TEM of virions from a 2009 pandemic influenza A(H1N1) isolate. CDC notes varied shapes and surface spikes. No scale is provided on the source page.
CDC / C. S. Goldsmith and A. Balish. Public domain; CDC is the free source. Source and credit ↗

Confocal fluorescence image with a red cell and blue nucleus among green polymer nanofibers — ACQUIRED REFERENCE · CONFOCALCell on a fiber scaffold
A human bone marrow stromal cell on a polymer scaffold. Green marks fibers, red marks actin, and blue marks the nucleus; NIST reports an image cube of 246 × 246 × 29 µm.
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Source and credit ↗

False-color SEM with bright golden nanoparticles against a dark background — ACQUIRED REFERENCE · SEMGold nanoparticle standards
NIST’s false-color SEM shows gold nanoparticle reference standards at 250,000×. The publisher gives no physical scale bar here; display magnification alone is not a measurement.
Andras Vladar / NIST. Source and credit ↗

Grayscale SEM of biconcave red blood cells in fibrin, with SEM settings and a five micrometer scale bar along the bottom — ACQUIRED REFERENCE · SEMBlood cells in fibrin
Red blood cells are enmeshed in a fibrin matrix on a catheter surface. CDC records 5,716× magnification; the full image retains a 5 µm scale bar and instrument settings.
CDC / Janice Haney Carr. Public domain; CDC is the free source. Source and credit ↗

Color-added transmission electron micrograph showing an annotated silicon nanowire and surrounding layers with a 40 nanometer scale bar — ACQUIRED REFERENCE · TEMSilicon nanowire and dielectric layers
NIST’s color-added TEM identifies a silicon nanowire within a thin dielectric stack. The original annotations and 40 nm scale bar remain in the image.
Bonevich / NIST. Source and credit ↗

Colorful cross-polarized mineral photomicrograph with mineral labels and a 1000 micrometer scale bar — ACQUIRED REFERENCE · POLARIZED LIGHTMesaba drill-core minerals
Crossed polarizers reveal minerals in a Mesaba copper-nickel deposit drill-core sample. The full image preserves its mineral labels and 1000 µm scale bar; “B1-95” is the core number.
Ruth Schulte / USGS. Public domain. Source and credit ↗

03 / IMAGE LITERACY

Look past the color.

01 / SCALE

Measure before comparing

A scale bar ties pixels to a measured distance. Magnification alone changes with display size, so use calibrated scale information when assessing feature dimensions.

02 / CONTRAST

Ask what creates brightness

SEM, fluorescence, and polarized light each produce contrast through different physical signals. A bright area does not mean the same thing in each method.

03 / COLOR

Check what color encodes

In this collection, AFM color encodes height, confocal color marks fluorescent labels, and polarized color depends on optical properties. The H1N1 TEM and gold SEM are digitally colorized; NIST added color and annotations to the silicon nanowire TEM.

For method details and image integrity practices, continue with the advanced field guide ↗.

TURN AN IMAGE INTO A QUESTION

Explore the methods behind the view.

Instrumentation Ask Dr. Ong ↗

See the detail.Read the evidence.

Know whatyou are seeing.