Recommendations for commercial multi-photon system purchase

[Richard Cole]

I also have gone through the same process over the last couple of years.  Since I run a core with many varied users and needs, I choose the Leica SP 5, since the spectral unmixing was very important and is unmatched by any of the other instruments (my 2c).  The software is rock solid and I recently just upgrade my MP laser with a DeepSee attachment (pulse modulation) and could not be happier.

Regards,

Rich




Richard Cole
Research Scientist V
Director: Advanced Light Microscopy & Image Analysis Core
Wadsworth Center
P.O. Box 509 Albany N.Y. 12201-0509
 
Research Assistant Professor
Dept. of Biomedical Sciences
School of Public Health State University of New York Albany, New York

SS518-474-7048
 518-474-4430  
  [hidden email]
Website www.wadsworth.org/cores/alm/index.htm




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[Andreas Bruckbauer]

One nice thing about the new Olympus systems is that they now have a
motorized beam expender to adjust the beam diameter to the obejective. When
changing the objective this moves so that the back aperture is always
filled. Even when changing the wavelength the beam expander adjusts to the
changing laser diameter. The 25 objective has a correction collar for
spherical abberation which the comparable objectives from Zeiss and Leica do
not have. One has to keep in mind that it is corrected only for IR not for
visible light so that for normal confocal we still use the 20x.
The IR laser control is still not implemented in the most recent Olympus
software, but they promised this for the next version. When you had a demo
on the older systems with Olympus pre-chirp, the beam alignment was manual,
whereas now you get a deep-see (Or Coherent vision) and everything goes
automatically. The illumination profile is quite stable with wavelength
change and there are two easily accessable micrometers to adjust it, whereas
on the LSM 710 the illumination profile wanders.

Best wishes

Andreas