This week finds six (yes, count us!) of us at the MMC (Microscience Microscopy Congress)) meeting in Manchester, where the streets are currently thronged by people staring upwards in confusion and disbelief, trying to work out what that strange bright yellow thing is up there. Yes, the sun does indeed break through the Mancunian clouds occasionally, so it’s great to be treated to this rare spectacle during our visit here, even though we are necessarily inside most of the time.
Actually there are effectively eight of us here altogether right now, as we are mounting a joint demonstration with Crest Optics of their V3 spinning disc confocal microscope, illuminated by one of Cairn’s Laserbanks. We are also showing Mizar’s Tilt lightsheet system, for which the European sales are now growing nicely, Gataca’s now well-established iLas TIRF system, our own TwinLED illuminator, plus a few other items that Martin our Chairman (who is once again the author of this propaganda) was keen to bring along.
Of those items, our Multisplit fourway image splitter (for which we’ve already needed to order a new batch) was destined to be present anyway, but Martin was also keen to show how the vibration-causing countertorque from a fast stepping filterwheel can be cancelled out by our dual Optospin configuration, where the two wheels step in opposite directions. This configuration also increases the effective number of filter positions from six to ten, but with a much shorter stepping time than a single ten-position wheel could possibly achieve. We were also showing Cairn’s new “bit on the side” adapter that allows, amongst other things, light to be sent to a second camera on a microscope’s camera port via a flippable mirror, and for which he also has to admit some responsibility.
But others have also been making their mark here of course. Martyn gave a presentation yesterday on the Crest V3, and today it’s Andy’s turn, when he’ll be talking about the Tilt. And not to be outdone, our CEO Jez is giving a fine demonstration of walking on crutches, following a pioneering knee operation involving stem cells, but that certainly wasn’t going to keep him away!
