[Histonet] What camera options are available for a Motic Inverted AE30?

[Robert Chiovetti]

Caroline,

If your Motic scope doesn't have a trinocular head on it, you only have two options to attach a camera:
1.  Buy a trinocular head.
2.  Put a camera on the eyepiece or in the eyepiece tube.

As far as attaching a camera, and you don't want to go with the MotiCam, I recommend you talk to Bobby Martin at Martin Microscope (www.martinmicroscope.com).  Bobby makes several adapters that can mate just about any camera to any scope, either through an eyepiece tube or at a photo port on a trinocular head.

You can take a look at the adapters he offers for consumer and "prosumer" cameras and then shop on the Internet for the camera, I suppose.

If you want to do some kind of counting and quantitation of the neurite extensions, but you don't want to connect a computer to the scope, that will definitely be a problem.  You could capture and store your images on a consumer camera w/ a memory card in it, then transfer the memory card to a card reader on a computer somewhere and copy the images onto the computer.

That brings up the issue of the software you're going to use for the counting and quantitation.  One way is cheap, everything else is going to cost you $$.  I've not tried exactly what you have in mind, but it's possible that ImageJ might do it.  ImageJ was developed at the National Institutes of Health using our tax dollars, so the software is free.  It's not the most user-friendly package, but you can't beat the price.  You can get started at: <http://rsb.info.nih.gov/ij/>

If you have the money and you want tech support, and you like talking to a real person who can help you with the imaging and analysis, then consider one of the commercial packages that's available, such as PAX-it (www.paxit.com)

Hope this helps!

Cheers,

Bob



Robert (Bob) Chiovetti, Ph.D.
Southwest Precision Instruments
Arizona's Microscopy Resource
132 North Elster Drive
Tucson, AZ 85710-3212
Tel./Fax 520-546-4986
Member, Arizona Small Business Association
www.swpinet.com
(www.asba.com)

----- Original Message ----
From: "cbass <@t> bidmc.harvard.edu" <cbass <@t> bidmc.harvard.edu>
To: histonet <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu
Sent: Monday, July 2, 2007 6:52:19 AM
Subject: [Histonet] What camera options are available for a Motic Inverted AE30?

Hey guys,

I am trying to find a solution for taking photos with a Motic inverted microscope (AE30).  As far as I can tell, there are no photo tubes.  I believe this is a binocular version (the trinocular would have a photo tube).  Are there any options?  There is a $300 digital camera add-on that attaches to the eyepiece, but this seems a bit awkward, and I don't want to add a computer to the microscope.  Any cheap third party options, maybe something that will allow a real digital camera which can be easily put on and taken off?

We're doing neurite extension assays, so we need some way to photograph the cells and count the extensions.  If there is another reasonable way (some sort of quantitative kit) I'd love to hear it.

Thanks,

Caroline 

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