RSF's new Nikon Labophot-2 research microscope
The RSF research and aquaculture lab received a major upgrade today with the arrival of our Nikon Labophot-2 microscope (see image).The purchase of the microscope was made possible by a grant award from the Norcross Wildlife Foundation in 2008. After a lengthy search of available microscopes, both new and used, we finally selected the Nikon Labophot-2. The Nikon improves and adds to our lab’s capabilities compared to our existing microscopes and should allow us to apply for new research grants that we previously could not have performed.
Some specifications of the microscope:
Nikon Labophot 2 Phase Contrast Microscope with
10x widefield eyepieces
binocular viewing head
5 place objective holder
mechanical stage with x and y movement
turret phase condenser with phase annuli for 10x
20x, 40x,100x and 1 brightfield setting
10x Plan Phase , 20x Plan Phase, 40x Plan Phase
100x Plan Phase Oil objectives.
6 volt 20 watt halogen variable intensity illuminator
Nikon trinocular head with 3 positions, 100% viewing, 50/50 viewing, 100% photoport.
With the existing lenses we have the nice capability to resolve objects as small as 10-15 microns without using the 100x oil objective. When we launch our larval foods project in late 2010 or early 2011, the oil objective can be used to resolve objects as small as 2-3 microns. After setting up the microscope we took a few test images (see below).
The RSF would like to thank the Norcross Wildlife Foundation for making this possible and the owner of of Arc Micro Optics
Arc Micro Optics logo
, Phil Hutcheson, for helping us find the perfect microscope to match our needs. We highly recommend that anyone considering doing larval imaging or larval foods work to contact Arc Micro Optics first. Most other microscope vendors did very little to understand our needs and attempted to sell us microscopes that would not have met the RSF requirements.
Live adult copepod at 400x
Adult copepod at 200x taken with the Nikon Labophot-2 microscope
