The rapid evolution of science and technology during the last centuries significantly changed not only our everyday life but also our scientific working methods. Observations of nature probably exist since the beginning of mankind. However, inventions of scientific instruments like the microscope or the optical telescope in the 17th century and their further developments led to revolutionary and ever increasing insights into biology, medicine, astronomy, and so on. Today we are able to resolve atomic structures with scanning tunnel microscopes, look into a patient with computer tomographs, or send huge telescopes into outer space to make sky surveys in many different wavelength ranges.