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My recommendation for a cheap confocal
is to try and find a used MRC 600. They might
be had (without microscope) for on the order
of $25,000 (more or less, depending on the
motivation of the seller, condition of instrument
and laser, completeness), but I would coordinate
with BioRad before hand to make sure they
will support its attachment to whatever
microscope you wish to use. We bought one
and spent an additional $15,000 for additional
parts and service to get it up and running, and
are quite happy with it. Its optical performance
matches any $300,000 new instrument from any
vendor (in terms of optical sectioning).
Of course, with any used instrument, it is
buyer beware.
Advantages of the MRC 600:
*line-scanning provides fast, sensitive 1D imaging
*continuously variable aperture-- very important
*operates at the Rayleigh limit
(depending on sample and objective of course)
*can do XZ scans-- nice for showing optical
sectioning performance-- always ask to see
the z-axis point spread function before you buy
*excellent service/support from BioRad
*easy to do timelapse, z-stacks, max projections
and two-channel merged images and has
good macro language
BioRad has told me that they if they decided to
discontinue support of the MRC600 they would
give us users 5-years notice. My lab relies heavily
on two MRC600's, so I do have some vested interest
in their continued use by the confocal community.
FYI,
Don
Donald M. O'Malley, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Biology
414 Mugar Hall
Northeastern University
Boston, MA 02115
[log in to unmask]
www.omalleylab.neu.edu
p.s. If you want to see some examples of our use of
the MRC 600 see:
Gahtan E, Sankrithi N, Campos JB and O'Malley DM (2002)
Evidence for a widespread brainstem escape network in
larval zebrafish. J. Neurophys 87:608-614.
and
Gahtan E and O'Malley DM (2001) Rapid lesioning of large
numbers of identified vertebrate neurons: applications
in zebrafish. J. Neurosci. Meth. 108:97-110.
I have these available as PDFs.
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