A High Gain Image Intensifier - Spectroscope System for in Vivo Spectral Studies of Bioluminescence

In bioluminescence the amount of light emitted in vivo from a single specimen is in general so small that conventional spectral recording techniques are not useful. A specially designed fast input lens grating spectroscope has been combined with a high gain image intensifier. The light from the specimen is directed to the input slit of the spectroscope by means of a fiber optics light pipe. The system is calibrated by means of a standard lamp. A digitized densitometer provides input to a computor program which corrects for system non-uniformities and prints out spectra at 150 intensity levels every 4 Ã… from 4000 Ã… to 6000 Ã…. The system has been applied to the observation of in vivo spectra from many different species of bioluminescent organisms.