ZEISS Tech Talks at ASCB 2017
Investigation of live cell dynamics with the Airyscan imaging technology

The Airyscan technology, which combines confocal imaging with a 0.2 AU pinhole, deconvolution, and pixel-reassignment in order to enhance both the spatial resolution and signal-to-noise-ratio, was recently developed to cover the gap between conventional confocal and super-resolution microscopy. Here, we present comparative results of the performance of the Airyscan technology by imaging of a variety of reference and biological specimens. These results show that the spatial resolution of Airyscan images, processed at default deconvolution settings, are similar to confocal images with a 0.2 AU pinhole setting but with significantly improved signal-to-noise-ratio. Our results also show that further resolution gains, up to a point, are possible by careful manipulation of the deconvolution settings. Finally, we show applications demonstrating the Airyscan imaging compatibility with live cell applications.