The LSM780 ELYRA PS1 microscope is a combined confocal and super-resolution microscope. The instrument features 6 laser lines for confocal acquisition and with a 32 channel GaAsP detector, it can acquire fluorescence signal from all commercial fluorescence markers from the violet to the far red range. The microscope allows for multi-colour imaging, FRET (Foerster Resonance Energy Transfer), Bleaching experiments, Z-sectioning and co-localisation. With an on-stage incubator and definite focus feature it is also suitable for live cell studies to follow dynamic processed.

The microscope is equipped with two different super-resolution modalities, including structured illumination microscopy (SR SIM) and single molecule localisation mapping (SMLM), previously known as PALM/STORM. This allows for improved resolution down to 100 nm and 30 nm for the two modalities respectively. This enables researchers to study samples even down to protein level.​