Biological Microscopes

Long-term, efficient time lapse of multiple live cells.

By equipping the system with a motorized XY stage, repeated image acquisition of multiple points located over a wide range is performed automatically. Furthermore, time lapse observation of the cells under different conditions is accomplished by using a well plate. These functions dramatically improve throughput of experiments requiring long-term observation.

• Repetitive operation can be done in sequence for multiple registered points, by simply setting the cells or specific points you wish to observe.
• Cell observation using well plates can be done more efficiently.
• Tiling image acquisition: After automatic registration of the neighboring visual field, a wide observation area can be automatically acquired while maintaining high resolution. (Separate software is needed to integrate the acquired images.)

Corrects for thermal drift during confocal time-lapse imaging.

During long time-lapse observations, temperature changes around the microscope and drug administration during the observation cause focal drift, resulting in a loss of focus on the target. For confocal laser scanning biological microscopes with high resolution in the Z-direction, even slight focal drift can impair image acquisition to the point that images are no longer useful to researchers. Olympus is the world leader in equipping a confocal laser scanning biological microscope with zero thermal drift compensation.
Corrects automatically for thermal drift during confocal time-lapse imaging.

• In time-lapse imaging, focus is automatically corrected immediately prior to imaging.
• Compensation is performed in reference to the bottom surface of the dish, allowing target Z-slice images to be obtained regardless of sample conditions.
• Without thermal drift compensation, several Z-slice images must be taken to ensure acquisition of target image plane. Thermal drift compensation eliminates this need, minimizes sample exposure to irradiation.

High S/N images near the cell surface: automated control of necessary volume of laser filtering light enables easy reproduction of TIRFM observation.

This special TIRFM unit employs the FV1000's laser for TIRFM illumination. The incident angle of the excitation laser toward the specimen is controlled through FV1000 software FV10-ASW, to set up the necessary laser filtering light volume. The optimum light path length is provided automatically through the selection of excitation wavelength and the objective. Since TIRFM observation can be done by exchanging confocal observation, protein localization on the cell surface and cross section images of the cell interior may be acquired simultaneously. A CCD is required for TIRFM image acquisition and image-capturing software is required. Note that time-lapse imaging by interchanging CCD and confocal images and then overlapping them is not possible.
* Cannot be incorporated with SIM scanner