The Leica TCS-SP that I use has excellent spectral characteristics, and can
scan sequentially (ie scan successive images using different excitation
lines, and assemble them as an overlay), so I don't see that the problem
with crosstalk rejection on the SP, mentioned earlier in this thread, is
real.

I was about to ask what multitracking was when Bob stepped in, I presume
that it is the sequential use of different laser lines on a scan-line basis
rather than a whole image basis, am I right?  If so then there may be speed
improvement, but not necessarily a quality improvement.  Both methods would
appear to provide temporal separation, but with a different magnitude of
delay between subsequent excitations.  Sequential image scanning would seem
to have an advantage when attempting to separate the long-lived
luminescences available from the recently developed nanocrystal and
frequency-doubling-phosphor technologies.

Ray



 >Robert Zucker <[log in to unmask]> wrote in message news:
><[log in to unmask]>...
>> Mike
>> I know about the Leica filterless SP system's importance.
>> What is a multitracking confocal microscope and why is this important?
>> Bob
>
>Two reasons come to mind.  Eliminating bleed through by sequentially firing
>the lasers really did indicate the level of bleed and cleaned up the images
>fantastically (at a slower scan rate, however).  Also, another benefit of
>improved scan control was being able to exert fine control for
>photobleaching studies.  We found being able to 'design' our own ROIs for
>bleaching (whatever shape we needed) was extremely useful.  This was
>particularly beneficial when wanting to bleach various regions of differing
>size and shape.  For our work, I need to put the photobleaching control high
>up on the want list; more generically, most folks would probably appreciate
>less bleed.  I guess we'll all see how much of this the new leica will be
>able to do when they start demo'ing it....
>
>Michael A. Mancini, Ph.D.
>Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology
>Baylor College of Medicine
>Houston, TX
>[log in to unmask]


                              Ray Hicks
________________________________________________________________________
|University of Cambridge          |Tel              01223 330149        |
|Department of Medicine           |Fax             01223 336846         |
|Level 5, Addenbrookes Hospital   |e-mail         <[log in to unmask]> |
|Hills Road Cambridge             |Web  http://facsmac.med.cam.ac.uk    |
|CB2                              |ftp server  ftp://131.111.80.78      |
|UK                               |                                     |
|_________________________________|_____________________________________|