Advanced Fluorescence Microscopy Made Easy

Olympus has introduced the all-in-one FSX100 fluorescence microscope system to enable even the most inexperienced users to create high-end research images. The FSX100 microscope is designed to remove all of the complex steps involved in setting-up and using multi-channel fluorescence microscopes, ensuring that users can concentrate on the images and data without any prior microscopy expertise.

By coupling high quality microscopy and imaging components with precision automation and advanced software, the Olympus FSX100 presents simplified workflows so that users can obtain high quality images and image series by simply: loading their sample; defining their observation mode and regions of interest (ROI); and then capturing their images: as straight-forward as Set-Select-Capture.

The advanced UIS2 optics used in the FSX100 include an SAPO 40x (NA 0.95) objective and 0.4x-2.0x optical zoom, providing an overall magnification range of 17x-80x. The three pre-installed fluorescence filter cubes – ultraviolet (360-370 nm), blue (460-495 nm) and green (530-550 nm) – cover a broad range of dyes with fluorescence illumination provided by an easy to fit, pre-centred metal-halide burner with a 2,000 hour lifespan. A highly stable LED illumination system is used to provide consistent brightfield and phase contrast illumination with a 16,000 hour lifespan.

All components are motorised and controlled via the interactive software, ensuring that functions such as focusing, exposure, fluorescence wavelength selection and even cover slip thickness correction are automated. As a result the user does not have to touch the microscope at all and can perform advanced imaging processes such as time-lapses, Z-stacks and multi-image alignments with ease. Due the compact and self-contained design of the FSX100, it can be placed on the bench at the point of discovery, or easily transported to wherever it is needed, making microscopy very flexible. Furthermore, the stage is completely enclosed and therefore provides full darkroom facilities, ensuring maximum imaging sensitivity.

The highly intuitive software guides users through the whole imaging process. An overview image of the sample is generated automatically once the slide or cell culture dish is placed on the stage and the user has clicked ‘start’. From here, regions of interest are selected and the microscope zooms in, optimising the image and presenting the user with a series of intuitive tools for imaging the sample. At this stage the user can capture the automatically optimised images or manually adjust settings such as the focus and exposure time, magnification, stage position and even change the observation method. On capturing images, the associated data and meta-data are stored in a highly logical image library. As a result, settings from existing images can be reapplied to the instrument for imaging new samples, ensuring excellent experimental consistency.