Modern microscopes used for biological imaging often present themselves as black boxes whose precise operating principle remains unknown, and whose optical resolution and price seem to be in inverse proportion to each other. With UC2 (You. See. Too.) we present a low-cost, 3D-printed, open-source, modular microscopy toolbox and demonstrate its versatility by realizing a complete microscope development cycle from concept to experimental phase. The self-contained incubator-enclosed brightfield microscope monitors monocyte to macrophage cell differentiation for seven days at cellular resolution level (e.g. 2 μm). Furthermore, by including very few additional components, the geometry is transferred into a 400 Euro light sheet fluorescence microscope for volumetric observations of a transgenic Zebrafish expressing green fluorescent protein (GFP). With this, we aim to establish an open standard in optics to facilitate interfacing with various complementary platforms. By making the content and comprehensive documentation publicly available, the systems presented here lend themselves to easy and straightforward replications, modifications, and extensions.

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With UC2 (You-See-Too) we present an inexpensive 3D-printed microscopy toolbox. The system is based on concepts of modular development, rapid-prototyping and all-time accessibility using widely available off-the-shelf optic and electronic components. We aim to democratize microscopy, reduce the reproduction crisis and enhance trust into science by making it available to everyone via an open-access public repository. Due to its versatility the aim is to boost creativity and nonconventional approaches. In this paper, we demonstrate a development cycle from basic blocks to different microscopic techniques. First, we build a bright-field system and stress-test it by observing macrophage cell differentiation, apoptosis and proliferation incubator-enclosed for seven days with automatic focussing to minimize axial drift. We prove versatility by assembling a system using the same components to a fully working fluorescence light-sheet system and acquire a 3D volume of a GFP-expressing living drosophila larvae. Finally, we sketch and demonstrate further possible setups to draw a picture on how the system can be used for reproducible prototyping in scientific research. All design files for replicating the experimental setups are provided via an open-access online repository (https://github.com/bionanoimaging/UC2-GIT) to foster widespread use.

Echelle inspired cross-grating spectrometers offer the potential to bridge the gap between classical high-end echelle spectrometers and curved-grating single-element instruments. In particular, the cross-grating approach offers the possibility to simultaneously achieve a high spectral resolution and a wide accessible spectral range in compact dimensions and without moving parts. We report on the complete realization and implementation details of an all-reflective cross-grating spectrometer based on a modified Czerny–Turner configuration including a folded beam path and a toric-convex mirror for aberration compensation. The applicability of the cross-grating spectrometer is demonstrated by test measurements including the recording of the spectra of different plant leaves. For the cross-grating spectrometer, with an accessible wavelength range between 330 and 1100 nm, a spectral resolution of 0.6 nm at 589 nm was achieved.