Using a light microscope, one can view cell walls, vacuoles, cytoplasm, chloroplasts, nucleus and cell membrane. Light microscopes use lenses and light to magnify cell parts. However, they usually can achieve a maximum of 2000x magnification which is not sufficient to see many other tiny organelles. For example, one cannot see the ribosomes, endoplasmic reticulum, lysosomes, centrioles, golgi bodies unless they have an electron microscope for increased magnification. These are very costly but are capable of greater magnification. They use a beam of electrons to illuminate a specimen and produce an image. The magnification is about 10,000,000X.
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