Hi all,

This is an email to advise you that we have recently had our 86X water objective returned after it was repaired, it has been reinstalled on HCF3 with the addition of an automated water dispenser - this is to facilitate high throughput plate imaging. 

Some users may remember interference with the cable attached to the 86X objective and the sample holder - it has been fixed into a position to minimise interference, but we urge you to handle it with care and get in touch if you have any issues. In addition to the cable, is the new tubing from the objective to the water reservoir, located at the far right of the microscope body. Please do not remove the tubing and report any instances of detachment/severing to FILM staff - this has already occurred once. On several instances the reservoir has become detached from its magnetic base with the movement of the objective turret - we ask that if this happens you place it back at the end of your session, in order to have smooth usage of this new feature we ask that all users report any issues and be respectable of facility equipment.

The 86X objective takes up 2 spaces in the turret, as a result the 63X water which was in place has been relocated back to its place on HCF2 - we apologise for any inconvenience caused.

We are awaiting a demo by the Leica applications team to go over the operating instructions of the dispenser in LASX and will update you all once we have compiled a guide. In the meantime Leica engineers have given us the go ahead that the objective can be used by manual addition of water for the time being.

If you are interested in doing high throughput automated (glass bottomed) plate imaging for either confocal or STED imaging, please get in contact with us so we can keep you informed.

Happy Imaging! 🙂