Regarding the discussion about the various confocal microscopes, the
question of the Nikon came up. We purchased a Nikon RCM 8000 laser
scanning confocal microscope about 1 year ago and have been extremely
pleased with its capabilites. We chose the Nikon because we do a lot of
work with living perfused tissue slices and now in vivo. The Nikon system
we have has an argon laser emitting at 351 and 488 and a hene laser
emitting at 543. Nikon also has excellent water objectives (40x, 60x) .
The 40x is uv transmittable and has a NA of 1.12. Using these objectives
, we obtain beautiful images real time in vivo using a variety of
indicators.
The software is now windows based although we got the original software
based on Roger Tsien's program. We did not find it difficult to get
familiar with the instrument or the software.
One other point that we like about the Nikon is that it scans in both
directions ( raster pattern) and photo bleaching is not as bad as I
believe occurs in other instruments.
Support from Nikon has been very good and I am quite pleased with my
decision.
Richard Hotchkiss
Washington University School of Medicine
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