4
System Specification
Lasers
The system has four visible-light lasers: 405 nm, 488 nm, 514 nm, 552 nm, and 633 nm. The 405 nm
should be used to excite DAPI or similar blue-emitting dyes, therefore use of the multi-photon laser will
not be necessary. The 488 nm and 552 nm lasers are for FITC and rhodamine bands respectively. The
514 nm laser can be used to excite YFP, while the 633 nm laser is for longer wavelength dyes such as
Cy5. All of the lasers are semiconductor types and can be switched on and off without special care.
All of the lasers are more powerful than those in the previous system
(20 mW or
better versus 1 mW for the 543 and 633 lasers of the previous system). Users will find that only a few
percent excitation is required in most circumstances.
Optics
The available objectives (illustrated above, from left to right) are as follows:
Position
Objective
Magnification
n.a.
Working
distance
(mm)
Medium
1
HC PL Fluotar 10x
0.3
11.0
air
2
HC PL Apo
20x
0.7
0.59
air,
coverglass
3
*
IRAPO
25x
0.95
2.5
water
4
HC PL Apo
40x
1.30
0.24
oil
5
*
IRAPO
40x
1.10 Corr
0.65
water
6
HC PL Apo
63x
1.40
0.14
oil
*
available on request
The air and oil objectives (1, 2, 4, and 6) are similar to those you have used in the past. The two water
objectives are especially good for deep-tissue imaging and are corrected for multi-photon excitation.
Note: the 40x and 63x objectives have spring-loaded front ends that can be inadvertently twisted and
locked in a withdrawn position. Handle them with care.
Disk Drives
The computer has two drives, a 120 Gb solid-state drive (C:) and a 1.8 Tb disk drive (D:). All data should
be saved to the D: drive.
