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A few external websites of interest are listed below. For our recommended book list follow this Reading List link. As well as one to one in-house training and assistance by our Core staff for our specific imaging systems and software, Oxford University offer a variety of relevant Skills Training Courses, including an Advanced Light Microscopy Course.

The Optical Microscope

Molecular Expressions Microscopy Primer - a great site
www.microscopy.fsu.edu/primer/index.html

Modified Nikon and Olympus versions of above - also worth a look
www.microscopyu.com
http://www.olympus-lifescience.com/en/

Olympus's 'basics of light microscopy' & glossary web pages
www.microscopy.olympus.eu/about_microscopy
www.microscopy.olympus.eu/Glossary
Download the Olympus Microscopy Basics and Optical Microscopy pdf files only

Zeiss's 'Microscopy from the very Beginning'
Download the Zeiss Microscopy pdf file

Zeiss's 'The clean microsope', i.e. how to keep your microscope clean
Download The clean microscope pdf file

'Fluorescence Microscopy' by Jeff W Lichtman & José-Angel Conchello (2005)
Download: Fluorescence Microscopy

'Seeing is Achieving' Nature microscopy special: Vol 459 Number 7247 p629-640 (2009)
Download the articles [WTCHG intranet only]: Microscopic marvels

Microscopy & Analysis: "The premier [free] journal for all microscopists worldwide"
Microscopy and Analysis website
Read the latest copy on-line as a pdf: Microscopy & Analysis

Also see our recommended book Reading List.

Fluorochrome Excitation and Emission Spectral viewers

The Invitrogen Spectral Viewer Fluorochrome DataBase [requires Java]
www.invitrogen.com/Fluorescence-SpectraViewer
For checking the excitation and emission of your fluorochrome dye

The old Bio-Rad [confocal] fluorochrome database
www.zeiss.de/cellscience
For checking the excitation and emission of your fluorochrome dye

The new Zeiss [confocal] spectral database
www.micro-shop.zeiss.com
For checking the excitation and emission of your fluorochrome dye

Also check out the spectra links on this site

www.fluorophores.tugraz.at
from the Graz University of Technology

Optical Microscope Enthusiast Sites

Advice on buying a cheap microscope for you or your children to use at home
The pdf also include suggestions for schools

Microscopy UK - thousands of microscopy related pages for kids & enthusiasts
www.microscopy-uk.org.uk

Ask-a-microscopist and list-server postings [with an electron microscopy bias]
www.microscopy.com

101Science.com's microscope pages for older school-kids & parents
www.101science.com/Microscope.htm

The Science for Fun website for older school-kids & parents
www.funsci.com/texts/index_en.htm

Schools website of the British Mycological Society
www.fungi4schools.org

Take the 'Micro-Bus' into the world of microscopes
www.microscope-microscope.org

Klaus Kemp's diatom & butterfly scale microscopy slides - to purchase
www.diatoms.co.uk

The Royal Microscopical Society
www.rms.org.uk

The Quekett Microscopical Club
http://www.quekett.org/

The Microscopical Society of America [MICRO for schools]
www.microscopy.org

Olympus Bioscapes site - Beautiful images from the microscope
www.olympusbioscapes.com

The Brenham Community Center in Texas pointed us to this useful resource for kids interested in learning more about microscopes

https://bumpreveal.com/resources/microscopes-for-kids/

Microscopy Live Cell Imaging

PeCon microscope live-cell incubator units and their heaters - as used by Zeiss and Leica microscopes
www.pe-con.de

Solent Scientific - another manufacturer of microscope live-cell incubators
www.solentsci.com

Digital Pixel - another manufacturer of microscope live-cell incubators
www.digitalpixel.co.uk

Live Cell Imaging - The Mattek 3.5cm Petri dish & Multiwell Plates for the inverted microscope www.glassbottomdishes.com.These Petri Dishes and multiwell plates have a coverslip on the base enabling hi-power oil objectives to be used to image the specimen. The dishes are also available pre-coated with collagen and poly-lysine. 

Similar glass bottomed Petri dishes were made by Awaki [glass base dish] and WillCo Wells [the glass bottom WillCo-dish] but I've not found a UK supplier of these.

CultureWell glass slides and coverslips for inverted microscopes [similar to Lab Tek multi-well slides]. See products.invitrogen.com or download the Culturewell brochure.

Lab Tek II multi-well culture glass slides for inverted microscopes [similar to CultureWell multi-well slides].
www.sigmaaldrich.com   1 to 8 wells per standard 3x1" glass slide

Lab Tek II chambered coverglass [cover-slip] slides for inverted microscopes [ideal for high NA oil objectives]. www.nuncbrand.com   1 to 8 wells per standard 3x1" glass slide,there's a lot of useful info via this link as well.

Culturewell multi-well glass cover-slips for inverted microscopes [where the cells grow on a thin glass cover-slip]. www.sigmaaldrich.com   1 to 8 wells on a cover-slip rather than a thick glass slide

Greiner bio-one CELLview Petri dishes cell culture and microscopy imaging. Download Greiner CELLview Brochure 1 to 4 wells on a a 3.5cm petri dish

Ibidi μ-well MultiWell, micro-channel and Flask 3x1" slides for slide cell culture and hi-res microscopy imaging. Go to Ibidis web site. Wells and channels with a 150μm membrane cover-slip on a standard slide

There are a few microscope slides thats have special indents to trap individual cells so that you can return to the same cell many hours/days later.

Bioptechs live cell microscopy imaging products. Go to Bioptechs web site. Inter-changeable coverslip dishes and on-stage heated flow-cell chambers.

Anti-Fadent Mountants

Invitrogen Molecular Probes - Home to the Alexa dyes and much else besides
The Molecular Probes Handbook

A few suggested AntiFadents to help reduce the rate of fluorescence bleaching
Vectashield 
Citifluor
Fluoromount G
ProLong Gold
Mowoil 4-88

You will get a lower background fluorescence if you stain separately for DAPI.
Otherwise there's ProLong Gold+DAPI and VectaShield+DAPI available.

Microscopy Supplies

Graticules.com for microscope reticules, calibration slides and 'The England Finder'
www.pyser-sgi.com
www.graticules.com

Agar Scientific [UK] for microscopy supplies
www.agarscientific.com

Thermo Scientific (Fisher Scientific, incl. Raymond A Lamb & Invitrogen) for microscopy supplies
www.thermoscientific.com

Invitrogen: Labelling and detection of biomolecules, cells, tissues [home of the Alexa dyes]
http://probes.invitrogen.com/handbook

VWR International [formally BDH] for microscopy supplies
www.vwr.com

The PolySciences website shop for all things fluorescent and particulate
www.polysciences.com/shop

Microscopy Image Analysis and Processing Software

Our core offers image anaylsis expertise, guidance and advicefor MetaMorph, ImagePro Plus, Volocity, NISElements, IPLabs, MatLab, LMS510, Genus, and freeware ImageJ/Fuji/CellProfiler

Our MetaMorph image analysis Software
www.moleculardevices.com  

Image Pro Plus image analysis Software
www.mediacy.com 

Our Volocity 3D image processing and analysis software
www.perkinelmer.com 

Our Nikon NIS Elements [Basic Research]
www.nis-elements.com 

Bitplane's Imaris 2D and 3D image analysis software
www.bitplane.com

ImageJ [PC] and NIHImage [Apple] home page - Free image analysis software
rsb.info.nih.gov/ij   Download ImageJ - For Windows, Linux, Java and Apple PCs
imagej.588099.n2.nabble.com  The ImageJ on-line forum

You can also download Fiji - which is freeware ImageJ re-packaged into a easier user interface
https://imagej.net/Fiji/Downloads
It includes a 'stitcher' utility for combining fields into a 'panarama'
https://imagej.net/Image_Stitching

Icy is another freeware image analysis software package that offers visualization, annotation and the quantification of bioimaging data
icy.bioimageanalysis.org

The Broad Institute MIT & Harvard [CellProfiler Freeware]
www.broadinstitute.org

XuV free 4D z-stack stitching tool [not for 2D]
www.xuvtools.org

Our Microscope Manufacturers

Nikon Microscopes on the Web
www.nikoninstruments.com/en_GB/Products
www.nis-elements.com

Olympus Microscopes on the Web
www.olympus.co.uk/microscopy

Zeiss Microscopes on the Web
www.zeiss.com/micro

FISH and Immunofluorescence

Book: 'Fluorescence in situ Hybridization (FISH)' J Bridger, E Volpi eds, 2010, 451 pages www.springer.com/life+sciences

The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute's Molecular Cytogenetics page

Gateway to the US Dept Energy's Genomic Website genomics.energy.gov
The genomic science program
Gene and Protein database on-line guide
Resources for Molecular Cytogenetics - Universita' di Bari, Italy www.biologia.uniba.it/rmc

Wikipedia's entry for FISH & immunofluorescence en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorescent_in_situ_hybridization en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immunofluorescence

Leica's Cytogenetics website - this is our Cytovision system www.leica-microsystems.com/cytovision
Imaging Associates [IMAS], MetaSystems and Spectral Imaging's Cytogenetics website www.metasystems-international.com M-FISH paints and molecular cytogenetics workstations

www.zeiss.co.uk Imaging Associates [IMAS]: Metasystems UK distributer