Dear all,

The Olympus confocal is down as the controller box does not respond anymore.
The Zeiss Exciter confocal suffers from mis-alignment of the 405nm laser compared to the other ones.
The exciter confocal can still be used if you do not require the 405nm laser.

The companies have been notified and we will try to solve these problems as soon as possible.

I would also like to take this opportunity to stress the fact once more to put the covers on the microscopes when you are the last one using them. The covers are essential to protect the microscopes from dust generated by the airco system.

Also, I keep finding black-capped bottles of water next to the microscopes and which are used on the immersion lenses. This is absolutely not allowed as it leads to mineral deposition on the lenses.
The only water which can be used for the water immersion lenses has to be ultra purified (MQ from the small machine in the stock room).

Finally, yesterday, I found out that the 60x lens of the spinning disc was unscrewed, leading to fluctuations in the Z-position. There is no reason why somebody should unscrew this lens from this microscope and this should not happen again. 

greetings,

Daniel
--
Daniel Van Damme
Expert scientist
Tel:+32 (0)9 331 39 13

Department of Plant Systems Biology
VIB, Ghent University
Technologiepark 927
9052 Ghent, Belgium
http://www.psb.ugent.be