We bought a new shutter to rapidly block halogen light in time recordings using the EM-CCD camera of the NIKON imaging station. Previously, intervals between fluorescent observation and DIC recording required warming up the halogen lamp for at least 4 seconds. Now the light path is rapidly switchable in milliseconds and is incorporated into the NIS software and its Optical Configurations.

Today, NIKON replaced the DIC NII-slider for 100x for the DIC-R variant, it solves the issue of spherical aberration caused by the DIC-II which was obvious in calibration bead imaging. The condensor DIC-R module works fine for the 60x lens with DIC NII slider in place.

The NIKON system has been updated again, a 2 TB hard drive is installed that allows temporary storage untill you verified dataintegrity . We will imply an automated sync-system  to move data from the C:\ drive to the new F:\ drive when the system is not in use.

A new cy5-cube has been placed in the 3rd A1R filter wheel set to allow sensitive imaging of far red dyes in the GaAsP detector, and outperforms the old filtercube several fold.

Users need to purchase their own stocks of imaging chambers, we were lucky to obtain a set of chambers from IBIDI and they perform well on our systems. We also have good experience with WPI 3 cm Fluodishes (having a 8 mm or 23 mm imaging well), initial problems with Labtech chambered coverglas slides are solved. Low cost solutions using ATTOfluor cell chambers clamping 25 mm round cs from Marienfeld are also available. It should be noted that mounting cs sometimes induces tension in the clamped cs which is released in an unpredictable manner, resulting in a loss of focus. Remember that objectives of high end imaging systems are calibrated to work with #1.5 (or 0.17 mm) thick glass coverslips.

Lastly, the TOKAI hit heater setup will be updated to allow better fluid replacement during imaging in the coming weeks.