IMPROVEMENTS IN AND RELATING TO IMAGING

摘要

A method of imaging light from a specimen in which excitation light passes t o the specimen via a scanning system and light emitted by luminescence of the specimen passes in another direction via the scanning system to an image capture device having a sensor having discrete spatially distinct light sensitive regions. The scanning system is operated so as to scan the whole o f an area of interest of the specimen, and the excitation light and/or the ima ge capture device are controlled so that light emitted from the specimen is onl y incident on the image capture device sensor for a specific time period equal to that required for scanning the whole of the area of interest n times (whe re n is a whole number equal to or greater than 1). The scanning system is a confocal system, and in one example comprises a rotating Nipkow disc scanner and the pattern of openings in the disc is such that rotation of the disc through A~ results in scanning the whole of the area of interest and the sai d specific time period is selected to correspond to nA~ of disc rotation. Apparatus for performing the method to produce a video signal for creating a n image in a display device or for processing and analysis by a computer, includes control means adapted to control the excitation light and/or the image capture deviceso that light from the specimen is incident on the image capture device for the specific period of time, and the image capture device is a CCD camera.