Illustration with a microscope and a microscopic image of neurons on a green background

Imaging Facility

Our Imaging Facility supports scientists from both of the institute’s locations, Seewiesen and Martinsried. We help design experiments including the choice of fluorophores, clearing method, image modality and possible processing and analysis pipeline. We provide theoretical and practical trainings to students and postdocs. Furthermore, we assist in designing and purchasing commercially-available microscopes as well building complex prototypes and optical setups ranging from multi-photon microscopes to behavioral arenas.

To acknowledge the facility in publications please use our Research Resource Identifier RRID:SCR_026797.

For staff: Detailed information on all equipment is found in our MAX intranet

Camera-based microscopes

Photo of the Zeiss AxioScan Z.1-microscope and a microscopy image.

Zeiss AxioScan Z.1 (upright)

This is a high throughput slidescanner which can automatically image up to 100 slides in with either brightfield or epi-fluorescence illumination.

Photo of a Leica-microscope and a microscopy image.

Leica THUNDER Model Organism

This stereomicroscope is a flexible tool to take overview images of a variety of samples, from small Drosophila brains to whole mice.

Photo of the Nikon spinning disk-microscope and a microscopy image.

Nikon Spinning disk CSU-W1 SoRa (inverted)

This microscope is the popular system of choice for live-cell experiments, thanks to its speed and very gentle illumination.

Miltenyi Biotec Ultramicroscope II

This lightsheet microscope can achieve fast image acquisition over a wide range of field-of-views and is capable of imaging entire (cleared) mammalian and avian brains.

Point-scanning microscopes

Photo of Leica STELLARIS 5 DMi8-microscope and a microscopy image.

Leica STELLARIS 5 DMi8 (inverted)

This is an inverted confocal microscope suitable for a variety of samples such as neuronal cell cultures, organoids and brain slices.

Photo of the Leica STELLARIS 5 DM6-microscope and a microscopy image.

Leica STELLARIS 5 DM6 (upright)

This upright confocal microscope is suitable to image to image fixed samples such as whole Drosophila brains or slices.

Photo of the Zeiss LSM900-microscope and a microscopy image.

Zeiss LSM900 (upright)

The latest addition to the Imaging Facility is a very sensitive confocal microscope. It is particularly suitable to image aquatic model organisms thanks to its water-dipping objectives.

Photo of the Zeiss LSM700-microscope and a microscopy image.

Zeiss LSM700 (upright)

Upright confocal laser scanning microscope whose short beampath from the objectives to the detectors allows the detection of dim fluorescent signals.

Bild des Leica SP8-Mikroskops und eines Mikroskopiebildes

Leica SP8 (upright)

This upright confocal laser scanning microscope is particularly suitable to image slices thanks also to its stage with wide travel range and the Leica navigator system.

Photo of the Leica SP8 Matrix-microscope and a microscopy image.

Leica SP8 Matrix (upright)

This is a versatile upright confocal laser scanning microscope. It can image a variety of fixed samples from brain slices to CLARITY-cleared specimens.

Image analysis workstation

Three-part image with different microscopic images.

Arivis Pro

Our workstation has an Intel Xeon E5-2620V3 processor, 256 GB RAM, 2 TB fast SSD and a Nvidia GeForce GTX TITAN X. Users can log in remotely and analyze or visualize their data with Arivis PRO.

Other optical devices

Selection of optical and electronic devices.

We also have a digital spectrometer for testing the absorption and emission spectra of fluorescent dyes, cleaning equipment for optics, an infrared viewer, a digital refractometer to measure the refractive index of fluids, and a variety of power meter and sensors. Feel free to reach out to us to borrow these devices!