Epifluorescent

Stand:

Zeiss Axio Observer Z.1

Light Source:

Polychromatic Mercury Arc Lamp: HBO120

Image from Carl Zeiss Microscopy Online Campus

Objectives:

Filtersets:

The microscope has six filter positions, usually occupied by the following sets (typical fluors given):

Qdot 625 (Chroma set 39106)
GFP, A488, FITC (Zeiss set 38HE)
RFP, mCherry, Texas Red (Zeiss set 43HE)
DAPI, Hoescht, BFP (Zeiss set 49)
DIC TL: Used for Transmitted Light or DIC
POL: Used for Polarised Light Microscopy

Custom filter sets including those for Far Red probes (Chroma 39007) or shorter wavelength 525nm Quantum Dots (Chroma set 39101) can be added by request.

Other Features:

Application Notes:

Unlike the confocal microscopes, the epifluorescent uses an arc lamp to illuminate samples. This polychromatic light source is tuned by filters and dichroic mirrors providing good flexibility for different imaging setups.

This microscope has environmental and oxygen control as well as a micromanipulator. This allows cells to be microinjected with peptides, DNA, dyes or antibodies, and followed real-time using brightfield or fluorescence imaging.

The combined speed and sensitivity of the Andor iXon Ultra 897 camera, makes this system ideal for High Speed, High Sensitivity applications. One such application is fluctuation-based super-resolution imaging (SOFI).

By taking fast consecutive images, the pixels can be correlated in space and time, providing an improved resolution, below the Abbe diffraction limit.

Publication Reference:

This piece of equipment was funded by MRC grant number MR/K015931/1. Please cite this grant code when publishing work conducted using this hardware.