Head Mounted Scope

Overview

Exploded view of the head mounted scope.

The head mounted scope consists of a machined Delrin housing, optical filters and lenses, an excitation light source, and CMOS imaging sensor. The mass of the system in under 3 grams and connected to the DAQ hardware using a single coaxial cable. The body and optical components can be easily hand assembled using only forceps and a torx T2 driver.

Image of a calibration slide with 9.8μm line spacing (superimposed red boxes are 10px x 10px)

The scope attaches to the head of the animal with the use of a small aluminum baseplate. The baseplate and scope have a matching set of 3 rare-earth magnets which helps with mounting the scope on an awake animal. Once the scope is in place a 00-80 set screw is used to fix it in place.

Optical Path

Cross section of scope. Excitation path is in blue. Emission path is in green.