Leica Stellaris 8 FALCON

Last modified by Marko Crivaro on 2024/02/01 10:23

Intruduction

Please find the introduction video on our YouTube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BLrn7Cuicg

Technical details:

MICROSCOPE:

Leica DMI8
Fully motorized inverted microscope.
SuperZ-galvanometric stage
motorized xy-stage
AFC hardware autofocus
OKO lab Cage incubation system including CO2 Unit with active humidity controller.

OBJECTIVES:

HC PL APO 10x/0.40 CS2 (air, wd 2.56mm)
HC PL APO 20x/0.75 CS2 (Air, wd 0.62mm)
HC PL APO 63x/1.20 W motCORR CS2 (water, wd 0.30 mm)
HC PL APO 40x/1.25 motCORR (glycerol, wd 0.35mm)

The MotCORR objectives have a motorized correction collar for coverslip thickness correction

Motorised DIC contrast for 63x water immersion objective (IC Prism E, IC Condencer Prism K10)

LASERS:

White Light Laser Stellaris 8 (440-790nm)
UV (diode 405 nm/50mW)

Acusto Optical Beam Splitter AOBS

DETECTION:

Fluorescence
Two HyD S (positions 1 and 3) most sensitive detector at 410 - 560 nm range. Tolerant to over exposure and may be used for coverslip correction and other reflected light imaging.

Two HyD X (positions 2 and 4) most sensitive detector at 560 - 740 nm range. Not tolerant to over exposure, shuts down and may be permanently damaged. Fast detector optimized for FLIM, also has better image quality with resonant scanner compared to HyD S.

HyD R (position 5) most sensitive detector above 740 nm. Not tolerant to over exposure, shuts down and may be permanently damaged. Fast detector optimized for FLIM, also has better image quality with resonant scanner compared to HyD S.

Background information on the detectors

TauSense detection concept

Transmitted light
1 PMT

FOV scanner and Resonant 8kHz Tandem Scanner

Information on Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging (FLIM)

FALCON Fast Fluorescent Lifetime measurement

Fluorescence lifetimes for Alexa Fluor Dyes

http://www.iss.com/resources/reference/data_tables/LifetimeDataFluorophores.html

Fluorescent Protein Table

Software LAS X:

4.0.2. (18.9.2020)
4.1.1. (17.11.2020)
4.3.0 (6.8.2021)

~~4.4.0 (22.11.21)~~

~~4.5.0 (18.7.22)~~

~~4.6.0 (22.8.23)~~

4.7.0 15.1.2024

Quick start manual

Leica Stellaris 8 Falcon quick start manual.pdf

DSE manual

Dynamic signal enhancement is meant to allow fast image acquisition with passable image quality.

DSE manual.pdf

Tau-gating manual

Theoretical background and practical instructions on how to use lifetime based detection gating to reduce background in your images.

Tau Gating manual.pdf

TRAININGS

As Leica Stellaris 8 has more functionalities than your average confocal microscope, a regular three-hour training is not enough to learn all the ins and outs of the system. For this reason, the trainings are divided into four modules and the user can chose which module(s) they are trained on, each module taking two to three hours depending on the content. It is possible to be trained for more than one module, but each such training will be organized as a separate instance.

Modules and their contents are listed below