Berthold - NightShade LB 985

VISUALIZE WHAT PLANT BIOLOGY HAS BEEN HIDING

The NightShade LB 985 In Vivo Plant Imaging System is a modular, easy to use optical imaging system dedicated to in vivo analysis of plants. Equipped with an absolutely lighttight cabinet and a deeply cooled CCD camera it enables sensitive luminescence and fluorescence monitoring in tissues, seedlings and whole plants.

The camera can be attached either to the top or the side of the darkroom – the sample chamber – to enable imaging from above and from the side. Furthermore, key environmental conditions like temperature or light can be simulated to provide a controlled growth environment.

Flexible optical setup and exquisite sensitivity

The NightShade uses an ultrasensitive back-illuminated (backlit) CCD camera with high quantum efficiency over the entire visible to near-infrared spectrum. Cooling to a delta of -100°C ensures the lowest background and highest sensitivity, even at long exposure times. In addition, the camera can be mounted either on top of the instrument to take images from above or laterally for side view images, enabling you to maintain seedlings upright in their natural vertical orientation.

Control key environmental conditions

The NightShade helps creating a standardized environment for your experiment.

• Temperature control – temperature-controlled base plate to keep the temperature stable at user defined settings between 15 and 30 °C.
• Daylight simulation – 2 LED panels with 4 different colours each. LEDs are individually tunable in intensity and duration to simulate daylight with both, spectral and intensity gradients.
• Humidity control – the system can be placed into any appropriate environmental chamber.

A modular system tailored to your workflow

The NightShade provides a light-tight imaging chamber that you can set up according to your experimental needs:

Light-tight ports are available for the introduction of lightguides, cables or tubing, e.g. to water plants inside the chamber.

You are able to choose between different excitation devices: ringlight for single microplates or dishes, dual gooseneck for spot illumination of dedicated areas, or 4-fold floodlight for uniform illumination of large areas.

Several sample tables are available: the turntable can be equipped with different sample holders, e.g. to analyse square Petri dishes in upright position for unattended processing of multiple samples. The anti-condensation table for up to 9 Petri dishes features temperature control in combination with a constant, circular air flow above the Petri dishes, preventing condensation in the lids.

Powerful and intuitive indiGO™ software

The user-friendly IndiGO™ software controls the instrument and makes image processing easy. It provides the following innovative features:

• Easy wavelength management: dedicated filters for both, excitation and emission are selected via a filter inventory that provides you with information about the filter properties. The software provides the option to display up to 10 different wavelength (colours) in a single experiment. This way, multiple events can be located simultaneously.
• Daylight simulation: a set of 2 LED panels, 4 colours each can be mounted at different heights inside the imaging chamber for daylight simulation. With IndiGO™ software you can control intensity and duration of each colour individually to provide homogeneous illumination up to 1,800 μE or 15,000 Lux.
• Other features: optional 21 CRF part 11 compliance, animal alignment and digital mouse atlas alignment option.