The world we see with our eyes is just one view of reality, but microscopes can bring a smaller, practically invisible universe within reach.Photographs taken through the lenses of a high-power 'scope can reveal lifeforms and objects no person has ever seen.They also highlight beautiful, artistic, and often shocking details in common objects, like soap bubbles, dried coffee, flowers, and butterfly tongues:The Nikon Small World contest celebrates the most amazing microscope photos from around the world, and 2016's competition was as amazing as any of the years before it: more than 2,000 entries from 70 countries. (I was a judge for the 40th year of the contest.)Nikon will release the winners on Wednesday, October 19, via its Instagram account, @NikonInstruments.Until then, soak in the finalists below — and cast a vote for your favorite.

1. Electron Microscope Pictures
2. Microscopy Pictures
3. Microscope Pictures Of Things

The most incredible microscope images of 2016 reveal a beautiful, hidden universe. The Nikon Small World contest celebrates the most amazing microscope photos from around the world, and 2016's competition was as amazing as any of the years before it: more than 2,000 entries from. Find images of Microscope. Free for commercial use No attribution required High quality images.

Microscopes can see what no human eyes can, but the incredible views are often limited to the person behind the lens.

Paired with a camera and a lot of skill, however, photographers can capture this tiny universe and bring it to all of us.

Each year the Nikon Small World contest awards the best microscope images taken by amateur and professional photographers.

I helped judge the 40th competition in 2014, and it wasn't easy. We pored over more than 1,200 images from 79 countries before choosing 20 winners based on quality, uniqueness, and difficulty.

This year looked even harder. Judges had to pick 20 top photos out more than 2,000 entries submitted from 83 countries. The finalists, which we featured last week, included stunning views of carnivorous plant tentacles, bee stingers, tadpole brains, moth wings, seeds, neurons, nanoparticles, a Blu-ray disc, and even part of a cell phone pulled from the muck of a seabed.

Keep scrolling to browse the 20 best microscope images of 2015.

Eye of a honey bee covered in dandelion pollen

Mouse colon (right) colonized with human gut microbes (left)

Mouth of a humped bladderwort, a freshwater carnivorous plant

Lab-grown bud of a human mammary gland

A live mouse brain's blood vessels (red) showing a glioblastoma tumor (yellow/green)

Spore capsule of a moss

Juvenile starfish

Nerves and blood vessels in a mouse's ear skin

Young buds of a Arabidopsis flowering plant

Clam shrimp

Fern sorus at varying stages of maturity

Electron Microscope Pictures

Sea mullet fish eggs and embryos

Tentacles of a carnivorous plant

Microscopy Pictures

Australian grass seed

A flowering Arabidopsis thaliana plant

Feeding rotifers (tiny freshwater animals)

Microscope Pictures Of Things

A black witch-hazel leaf producing crystals to defend against hungry animals

Hairyback worm (bottom) next to algae (top right)

Larva of a horseshoe worm

Suction cups on a diving beetle foreleg

If you enjoyed these microscope photos, browse all of the 2015 Nikon Small World finalists here.

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