Confocal microscopy equipment at SLCU comprises six point scanning confocals:
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Zeiss LSM880 upright equipped with spectral detector and Airyscan module. This microscope is particularly good for imaging problematic fluorophore combinations and achieving better resolution than conventional confocal microscopes.
- Leica TCS SP8 upright confocal equipped with sensitive HyD detectors. This confocal has a vertical imaging mode, enabling roots grown vertically on petri dishes to be easily imaged as part of a time-lapse experiment.
- Zeiss LSM700 upright. This microscope is particularly good for imaging the new generation of red fluorescent proteins e.g mCherry and mOrange.
- Leica-Renishaw SP8-FLIMan. A new type of confocal enabling label-free organelle imaging and Raman detection of molecules. In summary this system enables SLCU to image, in living tissue, the ‘Chemistry of Cells’.
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Leica SP8-iPhox inverted confocal equipped with cooled ultra-sensitive detectors and all-solid-state lasers. This confocal has been designed for high-end applications, including automated time-lapse imaging over long periods, single photon detection, rapid scanning and detailed quantification.
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Leica StretchP8 upright confocal. Designed for live imaging of plant tissues during mechanical perturbations.
And a spinning disk microscope:
- A feature packed inverted spinning disk setup centred around a Nikon Ti Eclipse assembled by Cairn Research. This microscope is particularly good for high sensitivity timelapse imaging.