I'm not going to respond to the larger group, but I know one can buy LEDs
that emit strongly at 280 nm, which would give tryptophan fluorescence.
They're about $200, and one could build or buy a control circuit for not
much more. I think this is about what the commercial tools do. You'd
want front illumination. You can get the LED with a convex lens on the
front, giving a focus about 1" away. At that point the light is dangerous
-- don't shine it into your eye from that distance. You'd want to ask
your local safety guys to check it out.
We would use it at the synchrotron with a flash circuit that would be
synchronized with a video camera -- I think roughly 20ms would do it.
Let me know if it works.
Bob
=========================================================================
Robert M. Sweet E-Dress: sw...@bnl.gov
Group Leader, PXRR: Macromolecular ^ (that's L
Crystallography Research Resource at NSLS not 1)
http://px.nsls.bnl.gov/
Biology Dept
Brookhaven Nat'l Lab. Phones:
Upton, NY 11973 631 344 3401 (Office)
U.S.A. 631 344 2741 (Facsimile)
=========================================================================
On Thu, 15 Sep 2011, Harman, Christine wrote:
Hi All,
I was curious if any of you have tried or even know if it is possible to adapt
a stereoscope (in my case an Olympus SZX10 model) so as to view protein
crystals with UV illumination. Basically, I want a cheap manual version of what
a Rock UV Imager does. I know this is probably a crazy dream. However, I
would greatly appreciate any comments, advice or experience any of you may have.
Thanks so much,
Christine