Here is a little pie chart showing the cell reproduction cycle. The green portion is the long and mostly uninteresting interphase stage, while the pink sections represents the four canonical stages of mitosis: prophase, metaphase, anaphase, and telophase.

Cell Reproduction Cycle

Interphase

During cell reproduction, the cell cycle is basically divided into mitotic and interphase portions. The interphase part is made up of G1, S, and G2 subsections. I don't understand how, but apparently, the cell makes decisions about whether or not it should undergo mitosis while in the interphase stage.

Please note, even though all of these images are take at 1000x magnification (with oil) they each contain so many cells that I decided to deface the photos with red circles and arrows to indicate which particular cell I thought best demonstrated the phase. These marks appear only on the thumbnails, not the larger image.

Also, if these don't appear sufficiently clear, try adjusting your room's lighting, and your monitor's contrast & brightness. I prepared these in a darker room and they are distinct given the proper ambience.

Image	Data	Description
	1000x	During interphase, two nucleoli are visible inside of this nucleus.

Prophase

The first stage of mitosis is called prophase. During prophase, the nuclear envelop breaks down and chromatin compacts into disconnected chromosomes. The nucleoli disappears.

Image	Data	Description
	1000x	The nucleoli isn't visible at this stage, and there are disconnected chromosomes.

Metaphase

In metaphase, the disconnected chromosomes line up between the poles of the cell.

Image	Data	Description
	1000x	This phase is easiest to spot, all the chromosomes are lined up, but appear in the center of the cell.

Anaphase

During anaphase, aligned chromosomes move to opposite ends of the cell.

Image	Data	Description
	1000x	Anaphse is another obvious phase sporting distinct separation of the chromosomes to the poles of the cell.

Telophase

In telophase, cytokinesis division of the cytoplasmic components occurs. Duplicated chromosomes are captured into new nuclei.

Image	Data	Description
	1000x	Here the smallish apparently-two cells appear like mirror images with their nuclei off-center and near to one another. This is a classic telophase arrangement. The chromosomes now appear in the newly minted nuclei.