Systems and methods are provided for increasing photon collection during imaging with a light-sheet fluorescence microscope. In one example, one or more adaptive optical elements may be positioned in a detection light path between a detection objective and an imaging sensor. A depth of field of the detection objective is adjusted as a function of a thickness of an excitation light-sheet used to illuminate a sample during imaging. As a result, the detection objective captures more fluorescence photons generated by light-sheet excitation.

A microscope comprises a housing having a receiving portion for receiving at least one biological sample, an optics module comprising several objectives and an illumination system for illuminating at least one biological sample and/or an acquiring system for acquiring light coming from at least one biological sample, wherein the optics module is arranged in an inner space of the housing. The microscope is characterized in that the microscope comprises a replacement system for replacing an objective by one of the other objectives wherein the replacement system is configured to replace the objective by means of moving the optics module relative to the housing and/or by means of moving the housing relative to the optics module.

A microscope is a microscope that switches an observation method between the bright-field observation and the fluorescence observation. The microscope includes an objective that irradiates a sample with excitation light and converts fluorescence from the sample into a parallel light flux, a beam splitter that splits fluorescence and excitation light from each other, and a collective lens that is arranged in such a manner that it is freely set in and removed from an optical path between the beam splitter and the objective, that has a positive power, and that is set in the optical path for fluorescence observation and is removed from the optical path for bright-field observation.

A microscope includes a housing having a first opening and at least one second opening. A fluorescence device having exchangeable fluorescence cubes is arranged in a space enclosed by the housing. The fluorescence device is accessible through each of the first opening and the at least one second opening such that a total of at least two openings are provided, via each of which the fluorescence device is accessible and via each of which the fluorescence cubes of the fluorescence device are exchangeable.

An auto-focusing method for determining an in-focus position of a plurality of wells in at least a portion of a multi-well plate, the method including using a first objective lens having a first magnification to identify, in each of at least three wells of a selected subset of the plurality of wells, an in-focus position of each well with respect to the first objective lens, on the basis of at least three the in-focus positions, computing a plane along which the at least three wells will be in focus with respect to at least one objective lens having a second magnification that is not greater than the first magnification, and using the at least one objective lens to scan, along the plane, at least some of the plurality of wells in the portion of the plate.

A high content imaging system and a method of operating the high content imaging system are disclosed. A microscope has a first objective lens and a second objective lens, and an objective lens database has first and second transformation values associated with the first and the second objective lenses, respectively. A microscope controller operates the microscope with the first objective lens to develop first values of acquisition parameters. A configuration module automatically determines second values of the acquisition parameters using the first values of the acquisition parameters, first transformation values associated with the first objective lens, and second transformation values associated with the second objective lens. The microscope controller operates the microscope using the second objective lens and the second values of the acquisition parameters.

An optical device magnification level reader includes a base configured for attachment to an optical device, such as a microscope, where the base supports other components of the reader including a support arm and an electronic scanner. At least two indicia elements are positioned at different locations along the microscope. The different locations correspond to different respective magnification levels of the microscope. The electronic scanner is coupled to the base via the support arm, and is repositionable relative to the base and indicia elements to achieve proper alignment. The electronic scanner is in electronic communication with a computer associated with the microscope and is operable to detect the indicia element that corresponds to a current selected magnification level of the microscope, so that the electronic scanner is operable to send to the computer a signal indicative of the selected magnification level.

An image-acquisition system includes a microscope apparatus that acquires an image of a specimen; a map-image-acquisition portion that controls the microscope apparatus so as to acquire, at a low magnification, a map image including a plurality of anatomical regions in the specimen; an interface portion that allows a user to specify a desired anatomical region as a target region by means of unique IDs assigned to the individual anatomical regions; a processing portion that calculates a spatial position of the target region on the basis of the map image and atlas data having positional information of the individual anatomical regions; and a high-resolution image-acquisition portion that controls, on the basis of the spatial position of the target region, the microscope apparatus so as to acquire a high-resolution image of the target region in the specimen at a magnification that is greater than that of the map image.

The object of the invention relates to an objective changing and focussing apparatus (10) for microscopes (100) containing a plurality of objectives (12), and having an optical axis Z, the essence of which is that it contains—a first rail system (16a) having a first guide rail (17a) fixed to the microscope (100) and a first moving member (18a) guided by the first guide rail (17a), wherein the first rail system (16a) is arranged along an axis X perpendicular to the optical axis Z, —a first drive unit (20a) in drive connection with the first rail system (16a), —a plurality of objective interface elements (24), adapted for being connected to the objectives (12), arranged next to one another along the X axis and fixed to the first moving member (18a) movably along the Z axis, —a second rail system (16b) having a second guide rail (17b) fixed to the microscope (100) and a second moving member (18b) guided by the second guide rail (17b), wherein the second rail system (16b) is arranged parallel to the optical axis Z, and defines a starting position along the X axis, and—a second drive unit (20b) having a second drive connection with the second rail system (16b), and the second moving member (18b) is provided with a lifting element (26) providing a releasable connection with an objective interface (24) located in the starting position. The object of the invention also relates to a microscope containing such an objective changing and focusing apparatus (10).

Provided is a medical observation apparatus including: a columnar microscope unit configured to image a minute part of an object to be observed with magnification and thereby output an imaging signal; and a support unit including a first joint unit holding the microscope unit in a rotationally movable manner around a first axis parallel to a height direction of the microscope unit, a first arm unit holding the first joint unit and extending in a direction different from the height direction of the microscope unit, a second joint unit holding the first arm unit in a rotationally movable manner around a second axis orthogonal to the first axis, and a second arm unit holding the second joint unit. In a plane passing through the first and second axes, a cross section of the microscope unit, the first and second joint units, and the first and second arm units is included in a circle that has a center at a focus position of the microscope unit and passes through an end point of the first joint unit that is at the maximum distance from the focus position. Thus, when imaging an object to be observed and displaying the image, the user's visual field for observing the displayed image can be sufficiently ensured.