The most powerful lens of the light microscope is the 100x oil immersion objective. Because light is refracted every time it passes through a medium with a different refractive index, (air to glass or vice versa) the quality of the image is reduced with each passage. Thus, by reducing the number of such passages to a minimum, the clarity, brilliance and resolving power is preserved. You can see the difference between 400x and 1000x in teh image to the left.