MRC LMCB Confocal Microscopes - Introduction

Confocal microscopes are designed to reduce out-of-focus light (aka. blur) from images so only light from the plane of focus can be seen in an image. This allows 3D specimens to be optically sectioned and reconstructed.

General Confocl Microscope Information

Using the Leica SP confocal microscopes for time-lapse

Long-term time-lapse makes greater demands of confocal microscope computer hardware and software than simply scanning fixed slides. The following procedures have been recommended for use with the TCS SPE confocal microscopes because they do not have hardware specifically optimised for long-term time-lapse and are more vulnerable to fragmentation, write errors, hangs and other nasty occurrences. They are also advisable when using the SP5.

• Don't save data on the C: drive (also means don't save data on the Desktop, since that is on the C: drive). Use the D: drive or another large drive if you need to save on the local machine. The C: drive is a small system partition that doesn't have the capacity for much data