Tag: microscopy

Sourcing scan mirrors in early 2022

ScannerMax Saturn 5

There are some companies that have no real competition. Maybe a product here-and-there in their catalog is subject to market forces, but most of their items have no competing options from other companies….



A 20 mm working distance objective for two-photon imaging

The working distance is marked as 22 mm in this image, which is measured on-axis, from the center of the last lens. Practically, the mechanical working distance will be 20 mm.

We have designed a 20 mm working distance…



Open, easy laser-scanning microscope software: LSMAQ

Years ago, Benjamin Judkewitz wanted to try some new techniques out with laser scanning two-photon microscopy. However, the software we were using was rather cumbersome to modify. So he wrote his own software from scratch…



A resonant-galvo-galvo module from Vidrio/ScanImage

This could be handy for some of you. Resonant scanners are fast, but inflexible. You can’t tell them where to go. They just oscillate at a fixed frequency. All you can do is control the amplitude….



Frontiers in Bioimaging 2018 in Glasgow

Frontiers in BioImaging 2018 will take place on Wednesday 27 and Thursday 28 June at the Technology and Innovation Centre, Glasgow. It will focus on the latest developments in applications of optical microscopy,…



Democratized state-of-the-art neuroscience

Andre and colleagues have a preprint up on their project generating inexpensive instrumentation for imaging and optogenetics experiments. The 100 Euro Lab: A 3-D Printable Open Source Platform For Fluorescence Microscopy, Optogenetics…



Driving a green laser pointer with MicroManager

Reminder: green laser pointers have a ton of IR in them. It needs to be filtered out if you don’t want it. See this old (2011!) Labrigger post.

I.e., Paul and Kurt are right (see…



Checking PMT performance over time

PMT performance can degrade over time. A friend asked mine recently ask for suggestions on how to check PMT performance. In a prior post, I mentioned that the Hamamatsu PMT Handbook talks a bit…



Open source structured illumination MATLAB code

Peng Xi (Peking University) shared this resource his lab has developed: software for processing images for structured illumination (a superresolution technique).
Here’s the Github repository.
And here’s the paper (pay wall).

Previously…



2-photon calcium imaging of the mouse retina in vivo

Bar-Noam et al. 2016 (Shy Shoham’s lab) figured out how to image the mouse retina with 2-photon microscopy in vivo.



Open source head-mounted calcium imaging

The UCLA Miniscope project is an NIH BRAIN Initiative-funded project to open source head-mounted calcium imaging devices. Their web site is online now. They’ll be releasing all of the information needed for making these devices yourself, including data analysis. They’ll also be…



CodeV, Zemax, OSLO, or …

Trying to decide which optical design software to use? Just try them out and decide for yourself. I like how Steve Eckhardt (great guy, btw, in case you’re looking for someone to consult with) summarized…



TriggerScope for imaging system device control

Austin Blanco has designed and built an open-source system for controlling complex imaging systems called TriggerScope. It’s highly customizable out of the box, and both the firmware and software are open.



Olympus 10x for two-photon microscopy

Olympus released a suite of new objectives this year, and one of them is this 10x/0.6 NA. This is probably the longest focal length (180/10 = 18 mm) objective you can get and use with a…



Field of view = 3.5 mm with cellular resolution

In this preprint, Stirman et al. report achieving a 3.5 mm field of view with 2-photon excitation with cellular resolution. The design involves custom scan optics and a custom objective built in the SLAB. It’s…