Fan, J. et al. Nat. Phot. http://doi.org/c88b (2019).

Imaging of large fields-of-view typically requires making a trade-off in resolution. Fan et al. have built a one-photon microscope that overcomes this bottleneck. They project the imaged surface onto a curved intermediate, which they then divide into 35 sectors. These sectors are then imaged with an array of 35 sCMOS cameras. This design avoids the geometric aberrations that typically require correction in mesoscale microscopes. This real-time, ultra-large-scale high-resolution (RUSH) macroscope can image a field of view of 10 × 12 mm2 with a resolution of 1.3 µm or better. The researchers use their RUSH macroscope to image cultured cardiomyocytes or neurons, monitor calcium dynamics in human brain slices, and visualize leukocytes in the awake mouse brain. They achieve cellular and subcellular resolution at video rate, despite light scattering that is associated with wide-field imaging approaches.