Overview:
Confocal microscopy offers several advantages over conventional widefield optical microscopy, including the ability to control depth of field, elimination or reduction of background information away from the focal plane (that leads to image degradation), and the capability to collect serial optical sections from thick specimens. The basic key to the confocal approach is the use of spatial filtering techniques to eliminate out-of-focus light or glare in specimens whose thickness exceeds the immediate plane of focus.
The LSM 510 META scanning system can be mounted on either a motorized inverted stand (Zeiss Axiovert 200M) or a manual upright stand (Zeiss Axioplan 2). The system offers 6 excitation wavelengths (458nm, 477nm, 488nm, 514nm, 543nm and 633nm) and for detection, three separate reflected light PMTs, each with its own adjustable pinhole and emission filter wheel. Its main features are:
- Z sectioning and 3D reconstruction
- Time series for following cellular events (e.g., physiology experiments)
- Co-localization of multiple proteins and/or dyes
- Emission fingerprinting (lambda stacks scan)
- FRAP (Fluorescence Recovery after Photobleaching) experiments
- Topography: visualization of 3D surfaces (e.g., materials analysis), plus measurement functions (roughness, waviness, surface areas, volumes).
Technical Specifications:
- Zeiss LSM 510 META laser scanning module
- Zeiss Axiovert 200M (motorized) inverted microscope
- Zeiss Axioplan 2 manual upright microscope
- Multi-line Argon laser (458nm, 477nm, 488nm, 514nm). 458,477, and 488 for blue excitation of dyes such as GFP, CFP, FITC, CY2; 514 for green excitation of dyes.
- HeNe laser (543nm) for green excitation of dyes such as Rhodamine, CY3, YFP, Propidium Iodide and Alexa 546.
- HeNe laser (633nm) for red excitation for dyes such as CY5.
- Three confocal epi-illumination channels simultaneously (META detector + 2 single-channel detectors), each with a high-sensitivity PMT detector plus transmitted-light channel with PMT
- Wide assortment of high quality objectives