Michael Hooker Microscopy Facility (MHMF.ORG)

What's New or Changed

2008

• July 25: Leica MZ16F Fluorescence Dissecting Microscope/Macroscope has arrived and will be set up soon.  Initially this system will be a stand alone fluorescence and transmitted incident light microscope for observation by eye.  The CCD cameras for fluorescence and color will be installed soon after.  The computer controlled functions, including programmed z-stepping, automated filter changer, time lapse acquisition. ergonomic table and chair will be installed last over the next few weeks.  This equipment is funded by the NCBC and initially usage priority will be given to those who contributed to the application submitted in August & September of 2007.

• July 24: New Proximity Access Card Reader MHMF: If you have an access card already activated for the doors to the Michael Hooker Microscopy Facility you will now need to use the new proximity type access card (see sample below) in order to unlock to doors on the 6th floor of Thurston Bowles.  The external doors currently use the original card, but will be upgraded soon. 
• New style cards are currently being issued to those in the School of Medicine.  Those of you not from in the School of Medicine with access cards for the 6th floor of Thurston Bowles will have to get a new proximity type card from the SOM access card office at 41 MacNider (hours 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM).  Take you current card with you along with another picture ID. 
• No doubt there will be glitches as a result of the change over to the new type of card reader.  Our doors are part of the UNC School of Medicine door access systems, which is refitting all of the electronic door card readers.  Please contact Neal or myself (http://microscopy.unc.edu/contact.html) if you have problems or questions with MHMF access.
• (Note: Room 41 MacNider is hard to find and looks like it is really in just inside the Old Clinic Building.  Directions: Find room 043 MacNider and head towards Bondurant Hall, turn right at the corridor with the elevator and double black doors.  Go through the double black doors.  Room 41 is immediately on the right.)

2007

• New Image Processing Workstation - \\Zernike:  This new image processing workstation runs Windows XP 64 bit Volocity with a high end OpenGL graphics card and a 24" 1900 x 1200 pixel LCD monitor.  This station runs Volocity (Improvision, Perkin Elmer) 3D rendering, visualization and analysis suite.  While 64 bit Windows XP allows a larger memory space, runs large programs faster, it does have some quirks.  For example in Volocity movies can only be exported as .avi files with the "Microsoft Video 1" or "Intel YWUI" codecs.  .AVI files with these codecs will not run reliably in Media Player or Power Point in WindowsXP.  These .avi files should be converted into either uncompressed or the Cinepak codec using QuickTime Pro.  QuickTime Pro is installed on \\Zernike & \\Snell image processing workstations.  See Michael if you would like some quick tips.

• New 24" LCD 1900 x 1200 pixel monitor on Snell - bigger, brighter & more real resolution. i.e. better information transfer bandwidth to your visual cortex

2006

• Oct 25 - Xerox Phaser 8550 color printer: Better, faster color printer installed.  Connect to \\Minsky\phaser8550dp in order to print. 

• Oct 22 - The old Phaser 860 color printer is unavailable.

• Oct 20 - Leica Inverted Microscope: Fluorescence filter cube for far-red emitting fluorophores (e.g. Cy5, Alexa 633/647, Draq-5, ToPro-3)

• Aug 1 - Zeiss 510 confocal:  The F: drive storage space has been substantially increased to 110 GBytes.
  • 1. Files on the F: drive older than May 1, 2006 are no longer present. (In effect files older than May 1 have been erased, but don't panic and see point 2. below.) This is because a new F: disk drive has been installed in the system, and only files newer than three months old have been copied to the new drive. Therefore problems may occur if you are opening image databases from the F: drive (or copied from the F: drive after Aug 1) that have images saved prior to May 1, 2006.
  • 2. However for a limited time (until Aug 1, 2008) files and image databases that were present at Aug 1, 2006, can be made available by request.
  • Yes, this is all rather complex.  However we do not want to keep "expired" data, since both the D: & F: drives do fill up.  In fact we spend a significant amount of time dealing with expired data, and hope users appreciate that it is difficult for us to determine which are unneeded files.  It should be noted that most facilities have draconian rules about old data.  We know that a large fraction of the files on the image acquisition systems are well backed up by users.  However we have very little idea which files are actually no longer required.  In some ways we create this problem by advising users not the erase data files until they know the files are securely and adequately transferred to their computers/servers/CD/DVD/etc.  But transfer errors do occur occasionally.  For the bottom line please see the facility file storage policy.
  • Those who store image databases/files on the D: drive may consider using the open space on the F: drive instead.

• June 6 - Analysis Workstation \\Young: Replaced failing video card with MSI nVidia FX5200

• Feb 27 -- Spinning Disk Confocal:  Installation and testing of new filters and correction lens has been completed. 

• Feb 27 -- Inverted Nikon MultiMode:  Phase Contrast ring for the 4X objective has been added to the condenser turret.

• Jan 06 - Fresnel - The hard drive has been replaced and is available for imaging.  IMPORTANT: All users must run the IMAGING_SETUP.reg file before they can use SimplePCI.  Before starting SimplePCI, double-click on the desktop icon for IMAGING_SETUP.reg.  Answer "Yes" or "OK" to the 2 dialog boxes that appear.  If there are no cameras available in SimplePCI, exit the software and run the IMAGING_SETUP.reg file from the desktop.

2005

• April 14 - PE Spinning Disk: The Perkin Elmer spinning disk confocal is up and running again for live cell imaging of GFP-, mRFP- and Cy5-like fluorophores.  The system is now controlled with the same C-Imaging software package used with the widefield system in the Facility.  Contact a facility director for more information or to set up an appointment.

• Sep 2 - Leica SP2: The 561 nm green solid state laser has been installed.  All laser lines are working.  Note that the new green 561 nm laser has a simple on/off  buttons.  No cooling is required.  The 561 AOTF should be run at roughly 5% (cf. 50% to 100% for the old Krypton 568 nm laser)

• May 12 - Zeiss 510 Meta: The channel 2 emission band pass filter 475-505 nm information has been entered into the confocal database and is displayed correctly in the filter setup window in the LSM 510 software (and on the web page).  This filter is intended for CFP detection.  Warning listed at April 28 no longer applies.

• April 28: Zeiss 510 Meta: The channel 2 emission filter (505-550 nm) has been replaced with a 475 to 505 nm emission filter (Chroma HD490/30m).  Warning: The CH2 (PMT 2) filter display still shows 505-550 nm when actually the 475 to 505 nm filter is in place.  This needs to be updated.  The purpose of having a 475 to 505 emission filter is to help with simultaneous CFP & YFP detection using PMTs (not the meta) the 458 and 514 nm laser lines for excitation.  Prior to this upgrade the closest filter for CFP imaging was the 475 to 525 nm emission filter.  This filter is undesirable in that it lets reflection from the 514 laser line through to the PMT detector.  For more information contact Michael

		Copyright 2001-08  Dr. M. Chua, Office of Research, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599
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