Abstract: A microscope has an arm; a body tube secured to the arm and constituted by a plurality of longitudinally joining shell parts; a stage supported by the arm; a mechanism for moving the body tube relative to the stage along the optical axis of the microscope; an ocular mounted in the body tube; an objective turret carrying a plurality of objectives and supported by the body tube eccentrically with respect to the optical axis; and a mechanism for rotating the objective turret for aligning a selected one of the objectives with the optical axis.