The solar microscope, which more properly could be called a projection microscope, is a device that projects onto a screen real, greatly enlarged images of objects, the details of which are too small to be observed by the naked eye.
The name solar is due to the fact that in the first instruments, in order to have a sharp image, the object was intensely illuminated with sunlight using a heliostat; but the denomination remained unmiscellaneousd even when other light sources, such as the arc lamp, were used.
The German physician and naturalist Johann Lieberkühn (1719-1769) can be considered the inventor of the solar microscope. He used it, starting from 1740, in the study of very small animals, illuminating them with sunlight with a device that bears his name, but the model that became widespread was the one designed and built by the London optician John Cuff (c. 1708-1772) who was the first to use it with a heliostat.
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