The conditions required to image living organisms can be very different. For example, today gas anesthesia is used for small animals but is never used in plant imaging. For plants control of light, temperature or humidity is of more importance. In the field of infectious diseases or food processing the study of bacterial growth is the objective. In dermatology and material science the very faint luminescence from free radical oxygen species (ROS) is measured. In life science, quality control or forensic studies you need a very sensitive instrument for Western, Southern and Northern blots. 
To cover all these applications Berthold Technologies provides the very flexible low light luminescence and fluorescence imaging system NightOWL and a wide variety of accessories:

• Moving of camera inside the cabinet
• Height correction in each position
• Large space inside the cabinet
• Easy exchange of camera
• Microscope and plant chamber adaption
• Power sockets inside the cabinet
• Control of interface inside the cabinet
• Positioning plates
• Macro table
• Flange
• Gas anaesthesia unit
• Workstation
• Fluorescence Reflectance Imaging
• Ring-light epi illumination
• Dual Line epi illumination
• Gooseneck spot illumination
• Transilluminators
• Orthogonal 3D-Imaging option
• Animal beds for multimodality imaging

Flange

This option is made to give easy access to heated water, liquids, gases, cables, fiber optics into the NightOWL cabinet.

For easy positioning of microplates or Petri dishes.

The closer the camera to the sample the more photons can be collected due to the spherical angle of the lens. Sometimes also small objects have to be aquired. With the macro table the magnification goes up to 5 fold. With another 5-fold digital zoom the overall magnification up to 25-fold is possible.

The ring-light option for fluorescence illumination allows an even distribution of light upon the sample. The ring-light is mounted on an adjustable support stand allowing positioning at heights from 14 to 16 cm.

This epi illumination option is another alternative for fluorescence illumination if close-up images are required.

An important requirement of plant researchers is to illuminate every leaf of a plant. With the gooseneck spot illumination and its flexible fibre optics. BERTHOLD TECHNOLOGIES provides an excellent tool. It is possible to bend the fibre optic in every direction. The gooseneck spot illumination is a perfect combination together with the macro table. The space between camera and object is very small, only the gooseneck spot illumination can bring light onto the imaged area.

The workstation makes it very easy to move the NightOWL imaging systems to other locations.
The workstation provides enough space for the anaesthesia system, computer etc.

For the NightOWL system BERTHOLD TECHNOLOGIES offers special transilluminators with illuminated area on left side ensuring a complete field of view as camera is positioned on left side, too. The area of all transilluminators for NightOWL is 20x20 cm. The illumination by eight lamps each with 8 Watts gives the most uniform distribution of light. Housings of stainless steel and glass cover sealed with silicon ensure stability and long lifetime.
The blue light transilluminator with 470 nm illumination uses high intensity LEDs and is ideal for excitation of QuantumDots. Since NightOWL cameras are very sensitive BERTHOLD TECHNOLOGIES offers only transilluminators with adjustable intensity in 10 % steps.

Fresnell option

Due to parallax error imaging of microplates with normal optics is not possible. To overcome this an additional lens - a Fresnell lens - has to be added.

Sterile boxes

Sterile boxes, offered by the company Summit can be used in NightOWL. Different options are available to fit the NightOWL flange. For small sterile box BERTHOLD TECHNOLOGIES offers a positioning plate.

Calibration plate

BERTHOLD TECHNOLOGIES offers a certified calibration plate for NightOWL, a so called secondary standard. The secondary standard requires an annual certification against a primary standard.
Additionally a frame to hold neutral density filters allow linearity checks over six orders of magnitude.