Hardware

Cameras: SONY XC-ST70 (analog), but requires a difference image to get sufficient bit depth (is 10-bit sufficient?), DALSA 1M30 or 1M60 (CameraLink)

Acquisition boards:

• For CameraLink cameras: National Instruments NI PCIe-1429 CameraLink

• For analog cameras: National Instruments NI PCI-1410 (listed as obsolete on their page, but it's the only 10-bit card I know of, most are 8-bit)

Mounting on a Prairie 2-photon system:

If it is a Prairie system, all you have to do is mount an appropriate CCD camera to the scope. The Prairie scope has a C-mount ring on top of it. It is necessary to modify the Prairie ring by adding set screws (see photo below: orange arrow points to a set screw) so one can stop it from spinning and hold it tight (have a machinist do this). Then, move the slider from 2P mode to CCD mode (this moves an IR mirror out of the way; this IR mirror normally bounces the IR light from the galvos at a 90 degree angle into the scope tube, but for intrinsic you want the light from the scope tube to be able to go up into the CCD). Then image using your normal light source. A low power objective helps (4x, 1.25x, 2x). If you want to use a white light source, you can play games with fluorescent filters and use a filter (as for AF594) that will only allow far red light to pass into the camera. This has been tested with a SONY XC-ST70 (analog) camera and the OpticalImaging Inc VDAQ 2001 Imager (which uses difference imaging to perform 16-bit imaging).