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Hello,

The instrument was demonstrated at Neuroscience in November and I'm
certain will also be at ASCB in Washington next month.  It is indeed a
line scanner that uses linear CCD arrays for detectors rather than
PMTs.  There are some interesting new technologies in the design of the
instrument and the performance specs that Zeiss quotes are rather
impressive.  Particularly interesting is the fact that it uses a single
primary dichroic mirror that reflects and transmits all wavelengths.
You'll have to talk to the Zeiss guys on the particulars.  The lasers
are all solid state I think, leastways they are all mounted in a single
housing with the electronics etc.

The person to really ask is Mary Dickinson who was Zeiss development
partner on this system as she was done some impressive work with the
early versions.

However there are also some trade offs.  I don't think you can assign
odd shaped regions of interest as there is no point steering
capabilities in the LSM 5.  As far as I could tell from the demo, the
images would always be 512 pixels wide but you can reduce the number of
lines scanned to increase performance.  I may be wrong on this as I
guess one might be able to bin the CCD readout but I didn't think to ask
at the time.

 From the price numbers that were tossed around though this system looks
like its priced somewhere around a 510 META.  It would appear that this
would be quite a bit more expensive than a spinning disk unit.

In regard to spinning disk systems, folks thinking about these might
want to check out VisiTech's new Infinity Multipoint scanner system for
an interesting alternative in multipoint scanner technology (no
commercial association).

Ian Clements
Molecular Probes
Invitrogen Detection Technologies.


David Knecht wrote:

> Search the CONFOCAL archive at
> http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=confocal
>
> I got a brochure recently on Zeiss's new LSM5 Live confocal
> microscope for live cell imaging.  It appears to be designed to
> compete with the spinning disk instruments, however it is a line
> scanner rather than a point scanner or Nipkow disk.  Has anyone
> actually seen the instrument to comment on its performance?  Thanks-
> Dave
> --
>
> Dr. David Knecht
> Department of Molecular and Cell Biology
> University of Connecticut
> 91 N. Eagleville Rd.   U-3125
> Storrs, CT 06269-3125
> [log in to unmask]
> 860-486-2200      860-486-4331 (fax)
> home page: http://www.sp.uconn.edu/~mcbstaff/knecht/knecht.html
>