Dear All, The Berkeley Center for Structural Biology (BCSB) has recently completed a major upgrade of the Sector 5.0 beamline optics. A five- to tenfold improvement in available flux has been achieved at the side-station beamlines (5.0.1 and 5.0.3), which now generate 1.5x10^11 photons per second at 0.97 Angstrom. This wavelength is slightly above the Se K edge making them ideal for performing Se SAD experiments. The performance of 5.0.2 (a tunable beamline) has improved by a factor of 3 to 4. It now generates a peak flux of 8x10^11 photons per second under typical user operations. The upgrade has also extended the energy range of 5.0.2 to 16 keV, enabling the routine use of shorter wavelengths and anomalously scattering elements such as bromine. All the BCSB beamlines have robotic sample changers. The sector 5 beamlines are equiped with Berkeley Automounters (BAMs). The tuneable beamlines 8.2.1 and 8.2.2 are now equiped with Actor sample changers. Please visit http://bcsb.lbl.gov/ for more details about the Center and its beamlines. If you'd like to take advantage of the upgrades to these BCSB beamlines, submit a General User proposal by May 15, 2008 in order to be considered for the July-August schedules at the Advanced Light Source. To find out more, click on: http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/quickguide/independinvest.html We invite you to submit a proposal at: http://alsusweb.lbl.gov/4DCGI/WEB_GetForm/PXProposalEntry.shtml/Initialize. If you have any questions or would like to request open beamtime, please e-mailing [email protected]. (Please note that executed user agreements must be received by LBNL prior to beamtime. Proprietary fees, if applicable, must be received by LBNL at least five working days prior to scheduled beamtime.) Regards Peter Zwart -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- P.H. Zwart Beamline Scientist Berkeley Center for Structural Biology Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, CA-94703, USA Cell: 510 289 9246 BCSB: http://bcsb.als.lbl.gov PHENIX: http://www.phenix-online.org CCTBX: http://cctbx.sf.net -----------------------------------------------------------------