Prairie Techonologies Ultima IV

The Ultima IV is a fully automated upright microscope – objectives are above the stage. This configuration is ideal for in vivo imaging of whole specimens. The Ultima IV is equipped with a tunable two-photon excitation laser that allows dual color imaging of CFP/GFP/YFP together with mCherry/TdTomato.

Light Sources

Halogen lamp for bright-field microscopy (white light illumination)

• a contrast image of the specimen can be directly observed through the eyepiece

Metal halide arc lamp for direct visualization of fluorescent specimens through the eyepiece

Tunable Coherent Chameleon Ultra II Ti:Sapphire laser

• Range of 2-photon excitation: 680-1080 nm

Emission filters:

• 490-560 nm for CFP/GFP/YFP/Fluo-4
• 570-620 nm for mCherry/TdTomato

Objectives

(Magnification / Numerical aperture)

• 10x/0.5 Dry (Olympus)
• 20x/1.0 Water (Olympus) → for 2-photon excitation – Working Distance = 2 mm
• 40x/0.8 Water (Olympus) → for 2-photon excitation – WD = 3.3 mm

Detector

Two external non-descanned detectors (a multi-alkali PMT Hamamatsu model R3896 and a GaAsP PMT Hamamatsu model 7422PA-40)

Acquisition software

Prairie View Acquisition Software (Bruker)