We report on an optical setup for compact full-field transmission microscopy developed for imaging with laboratory scale X-ray sources such as gas discharge plasmas. The optical setup consists of a reflective condenser and a zone plate objective imaging in the water window region (wavelength 2.3 – 4.4 nm). The microscope is able to visualize object structures in the sub-40 nm region. The radiation for the microscope is generated by a gas discharge in nitrogen with an input power of 10 kW and few Watt/(2π·sr) narrowband line emission. A gold coated axially symmetrical elliptical mirror is used to collect the radiation and forms a focused spot on the sample. Having a diameter of several 100 μm the spot is larger than the utilized imaging field, which leads to uniform illumination of the object. The mirror can be adjusted by a 5–axes piezo driven translation stage to optimize the flux in the object plane. The He-α line emission (2.88 nm) is selected of the nitrogen emission spectrum by means of a titanium thin film filter providing monochromatic sample illumination. A micro zone plate generates a magnified image detected by a back illuminated TE-cooled CCD camera. At high repetition rates the source is suitable for imaging test objects like Siemens stars, latex spheres and diatoms with magnifications of 1000 at exposure times in the range of a few seconds.