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Nikon Instruments, Inc. introduces the AZ100 C1si, a macro confocal microscope system combining the best of stereo and compound microscopes into a single hybrid imaging system for dynamic imaging of single cells or whole specimens. This new macro confocal microscope system offers the highest resolution macro confocal imaging with rapid, real-time and high-accuracy unmixing options, allowing large fields of view and broad magnification of large samples.

The C1si confocal system's unique modular design and small footprint allow it to be combined with the AZ100 macroscope for researchers interested in low magnification, high resolution confocal imaging. The AZ100 C1si boasts simultaneous 32 channel spectral image acquisition over a spectral range of 320 nm in a single scan, providing the researcher with fast, high-quality, and continuous spectral imaging content. Simultaneous 32 channel acquisition at 10 nm, 5 nm or 2.5 nm bandwidths, all software-controlled, is possible.

"The AZ100 C1si opens a new macro world of true spectral imaging," said Stan Schwartz, vice president, Nikon Instruments, Inc. "This macro confocal spectral imaging system dramatically improves the quality of images obtained from multiple fluorescence probes within a sample, particularly in confocal imaging for the studies of embryonic development, neurology and developmental biology."

Studies of whole model organisms like the C. elegans nematode worms, the Drosophila fruit fly or the Zebra fish can now be documented utilizing confocal 4D time lapse imaging modalities. Wide fields of view can be 3D sectioned, and utilizing the same instrumentation, interactions of single cells can be studied.

The AZ100 has a wide magnification range from 5 to 500X and a unique zooming magnification system with a ratio of 8:1. With its telecentric zoom optical system, the system also supports a range of observation methods from low magnification macro whole organism observation to imaging at the micro level of single cells with high optical efficiency. A separate optical path for EPI-FL eliminates auto fluorescence from the zoom portion and makes observation of ultraviolet excitation fluorescence imaging possible.