Illumination

Acquiring images while moving the stage requires very short camera exposure times to avoid motion blur.

Exposure times need to be at or below 1 millisecond (ms) to ensure sharp images. To reach these short exposure times, it is necessary to direct as much light as possible to the camera.

Use the following steps to test an unknown illumination of a microscope that is equipped with a camera already.

1. set your light source of your microscope to the maximum

2. if possible, direct 100% light to the camera and 0% to the eyepieces

3. switch to the desired scan objective

4. open the microscope camera software and manually set the exposure time to the shortest possible value (typically ranging from 30 microseconds to 1 millisecond)

5. if the image is dark, increase the exposure time until you can recognize most details of your sample although the image is still darker than it would be preferred for viewing the images. Write down the exposure time.

6. increase the exposure-time until the sample is optimally illuminated

7. check that the image is not flickering (that means the brightness of the whole image is varying quickly over time) OR showing horizontal or vertical lines

8. report these two exposure times to Microvisioneer