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Hi Martin, 

We purchased a TIRF system from Nikon about one year ago, which we recently "upgraded" to N-STORM. The original TIRF rig had four lasers (405/488/561/647), and all that was needed was to replace the 647 with a more powerful one, add some optical components, and of course the STORM module for Nikon NIS Elements software. The conversion to N-STORM was done over a couple of days, after which we ran some samples. We used a 405/647 label pair, and it worked pretty well. Image acquisition set up seemed relatively easy. Image acquisition took maybe 15-20 minutes. The software keeps tracking the number of molecules identified and provided stats so that we can determine when to stop acquisition. Image reconstruction was quite fast, maybe five minutes. We only tested 2-D STORM, but system should be able to do 3-D also, although you probably should talk to Nikon about specifics, as this is a pretty recent commercial implementation. Image size (Field of view) is limited to the central 256x 256 pixels (we have a 512 x 512, 16 micron pixel Andor iXon EMCCD on our system). We only tested the 405/647 pair, which according to Nikon is the one that works best on their system at this time, although other pairs should work too. I should disclose that I have virtually no practical experience with super-resolution, and we have not carried out actual experiments yet. I also have not seen other systems and can not compare relative merits. But as far as I can tell, the system seemed easy to operate and to work quite well, at least with the demo samples. Definitely worth checking it out if you are planning to purchase such a system. Nikon can probably provide names of reference labs that helped develop the system, and/or publications.

--
Julio Vazquez
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Seattle, WA 

http://www.fhcrc.org

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On Jan 24, 2012, at 7:54 AM, Martin Wessendorf wrote:

> *****
> To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
> http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
> *****
> 
> Hey, folks--
> 
> Are there groups out there who've purchased commercial STORM/PALM instruments?  If so, do you have any recommendations or comments on them?  It'd be particularly helpful to hear about instruments that localize in the z-axis as well as in x-y.
> 
> Off-list replies are okay if you're shy, but please let me know if it'd be acceptable to include your information if I summarize the responses to the list.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Martin Wessendorf
> -- 
> Martin Wessendorf, Ph.D.                   office: (612) 626-0145
> Assoc Prof, Dept Neuroscience                 lab: (612) 624-2991
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