Hi Lisa,
 
Thought i woudl chip in with my experience as well. We have 2 Olympus MPE Systems, one inverted and one upright that share a common Mai Tai Laser (the laser can only be sent to one scope at a time). The upright is used routinely for intravital imaging and has performed flawlessly. We have imaged zebra fish and mice (both live and dead) on it and acheived some spectacular data sets.
 
The current configuration has on large 0.95NA water imersion 20x objective on it, but it is easy enough to slip another turret of objectives onto it if required. Not sure if it is true for other system but the olympus system is tuned to work with the 20x objective in multiphoton mode, so putting other objectives on may not result in optimal imaging. For single photon excitation it doesn't matter.
 
The software is stable and easy enough to use. Users are usually up and going independently after a coupel of hours of training and practice.
 
The only issue i have with it is that you can not communicate directly with the laser via the Olympus software. You can control the laser power via an ND filter system but other functions (such as wave length tuning) are carried out using a seperate software package installed on a laptop plugged into the laser.
 
One last thing worth mentioning is that both microscoes are fitted with black acrylic incubators (thanks to Steve Cody for this). They work so well at blocking out light that you can perform MP imaging with the room lights on!
 
Also look into what the service provided by the companies are in your area. Here in Melbourne Olympus are probaly one of the best for response and quality of service. There is no point getting the best microsocpe out there if the peopel in your area are not that good at keeping it going.
 
 
Cheers
 
 
Cam
 
 
 
Cameron J. Nowell
Microscpy Manager
Central Resource for Advanced Microscopy
Ludwig Insttue for Cancer Research
PO Box 2008
Royal Melbourne Hospital
Victoria, 3050
AUSTRALIA
 
Office: +61 3 9341 3155
Mobile: +61422882700
Fax: +61 3 9341 3104
 
http://www.ludwig.edu.au/branch/research/platform/microscopy.htm
 

________________________________

From: Confocal Microscopy List on behalf of Cameron, Lisa
Sent: Thu 14/05/2009 12:04 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Recommendations for commercial multi-photon system purchase



I have been investigating commercial multi-photon systems for awhile in order to purchase a system for my Institute's core microscopy facility. Our interest is to have the capability to do intravital imaging on an upright stand, but also be able to have facility users be able to put slides on and use the visible scanner and detectors. I realize this is a tall order for such versatility in one system, but since it is for a core (which needs to bring in revenue), I'm looking for the most flexible system. Does anyone have any suggestions about the most recent systems on the market? Or could you point out factors you think are the most important for making the decision on which company to go with? Please feel free to contact me off line.

I have seen a demo of the Leica SP5 MP, Zeiss 710 NLO, Olympus MPE and Prairie's system. 

(BTW - my own experience is with widefield and confocal live-cell imaging, so I have not done 2-p myself, but have been learning about it for about a year)

Thanks! 
- Lisa 

--------------------------------------- 
Lisa Cameron, Ph.D. 
Director of Confocal and Light Microscopy 
Dana Farber Cancer Institute 
44 Binney St.; JF 215 
Boston, MA 02115 
Office phone: 617-582-8824 
Fax: 617-582-8750 
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