Olympus IX81 inverted spinning disk fluorescence microscope

Detailed specifications:

Microscope: This is a high speed motorized inverted spinning disk fluorescence microscope. In vivo microscopy of dynamic processes in cells and organisms requires very fast and sensitive acquisition methods. LSCM is inherently speed-limited by the requirement of beam scanning movements. In contrast to single beam scanning systems, the parallelized approach of multi-beam scanning is much faster. Spinning disk microscopes are therefore very well suited for fast in vivo imaging. It can be used both as an inverted fluorescent microscope (when the disc is not in the light path) as well as a semi-confocal system when the Olympus slit disc is used for imaging. In addition, an inbuilt robust 3 deconvolution algorithm helps to achieve near confocal images of samples in motion. The unique features of this microscope are

1. High speed (semi) confocal imaging with Disc Scanning unit.
2. High sensitive imaging with the help of Deep cooled (-80°) EMCCD camera
3. Low bleaching with intense broadband (150W, Hg & Xenon arc lamp covering 350-700nm) for imaging in UV-NIR dyes.
4. High speed & Low bleaching multi-dimensional (XYZʎ and T) imaging using fast switching devices like fast switching filter wheel, attenuator, shutter and real time control board for parallel switching of multiple devices during multi-dimensional imaging acquisition)
5. A dedicated IR corrected 60X Super Apo Water immersion objective for live cell imaging and 100X oil immersion objective for higher magnification.

Dual Excitation light source: 100 W Mercury and 150W Mercury Xenon (MT20) with built in excitation filter wheel, attenuator and shutter for fast imaging (fluorescence)

Conventional fluorescence filters:

• Microscope Turret (for observation) 6 position- 1) Mirror, 2)DAPI, 3) FITC, 4) TRITC 5) DIC, 6) Blank
• DSU scan head (for imaging) 6 position turret- 1) Mirror, 2) Triple band (EM& dichroic), 3) DAPI, 4) FITC, 5) TRITC, 6) DIC
• Excitation fast filter wheel (MT20) 6 position- 1) Blank, 2)DAPI, 3) FITC, 4) TRITC 5) Dual, 6) Triple
• ND filter Wheel 6 position- 1) 2.5%, 2) 6%, 3) 12%, 4) 25%, 5) 50% 6) 100%

Condenser:

            6 position- DIC 10, DIC100, DIC 20, DIC 40, BF, BF 

Objectives:

• 10x/0.30, 10X PLAN Fluorite, NA: 0.30, air
• 20x/0.75: Plan Super Apo, NA: 0.75, air
• 40x/0.95  Plan Super Apo NA: 0.95, air with correction collar
• 63x/1.2:  Plan super Apo NA: 1.2, water with correction collar
• 100x/1.3: Plan fluorite, NA: 1.3, Oil

Detectors:

• Peltier cooled EMCCD camera (Andor Ixon-885, -80°C, monochrome)

Computer:

• workstation with Intel Xeon E5-2650 CPU, 2GB RAM,
• Windows 7
• Dedicated Xcellence real time software is used to imaging and analysis.