A new motorised phototube with two ports, allowing an eye and a camera to work simultaneously, has been introduced by Carl Zeiss for use with the Axioplan 2 microscope system
The phototube offers the full 25mm field of view to the observer and twin output ports for attachment of analogue, digital and photographic cameras or photo multipliers for applications in photometry.
Control of switching is by buttons on the front of the head and includes a stray light shutter to prevent ingress of light if the users head is lifted away from the binocular when fluorescence images are being captured.
When working with the motorised stands of the Axioplan 2, control can be achieved through software as the head can be connected via Can-Bus link to the microscope stand.
This allows automatic set-up for some analysis processes and for image capture routines.
Switching to the observer can be selected using the lower divider with the following ratios; 100% to observer, 50/50 observer and video, or 100% to video.
When splitting to the cameras the upper divider offers two options, 100% to upper port with no light to the rear port and a second position which accepts a 'push and click' filter cube.
In this position, cubes can be quickly and easily exchanged and can be configured with a variety of beam splitters including 50/50 neutral mirror or a dichroic beam splitter with or without barrier filters.
