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Dear Gerard,

you sound like a sales person for Dectris. Fine slicing is perfectly 
fine with CCD detectors - it takes a bit longer because of the step scan 
instead of continuous scan. The read noise issue is often overstated 
compared to the sample induced scatter background. If for fine slicing 
at 0.05 degree or less the diffraction peaks go too close to the read 
noise make a longer exposure - signal goes up, ratio signal to 
sample-induced-BG less, as for any fine slicing, same read noise.

It would be helpful to analyze the dense spot packing along layer lines 
if we knew the wavelength and the sample-to-detector distance (assuming 
this is a 300 mm detector) and the rotation width - as you pointed out. 
That would help to distinguish between multiple crystals (my guess) and 
lattice translocation disorder. Fine slicing is definitely needed to 
figure out what the diffraction pattern at 120 degree could tell you in 
terms of strong anisotropy .

Best regard.

Gerd

On 13.07.2017 08:20, Gerard Bricogne wrote:
> Dear Tang,
>
>       I noticed that your diffraction images seem to have been recorded
> on a 3x3 CCD detector. With this type of detector, fine slicing is
> often discouraged (because of the readout noise), and yet with the two
> long cell axes you have, any form of thick (or only semi-fine) slicing
> would result in spot overlaps.
>
>       What, then, was your image width? Would you have access to a
> beamline with a Pilatus detector so that you could collect fine-sliced
> data?
>
>       I would tend to agree with Herman that your crystals might be
> cursed with lattice translocation disorder (LTD), but you might as
> well try and put every chance of surviving this on your side by making
> sure that you collect fine-sliced data. LTD plus thick slicing would
> give you random data along the streaky direction. Use an image width
> of at most 0.1 degree (0.05 would be better) on a Pilatus, and use XDS
> to process your images.
>
>
>       Good luck!
>       
>         Gerard
>
> --
> On Thu, Jul 13, 2017 at 01:21:02PM +0100, Tang Chenjun wrote:
>> Hi David,
>> Thanks for your comments. Although the spots become streaky in certain directions, I have processed the data in HKL3000 and imosflm, which suggested the C2221 space group (66.59, 246.95 and 210.17). The Rmerge(0.14), completeness(94.8%), redundancy(4.6) are OK. When I tried to run Balbes with the solved native structure, the molecular replacement solution was poor. So I ran Balbes with the split domains of the native structure. Although the solutions were also poor, I found the MR score of one solution above 35. On the basis of this solution, I tried to run Buccaneer and the Rfree could be 0.46. Unfortunately, there are four molecules in the asymmetric unit and it is to hard for me to reduce the Rfree further.
>>
>> All best,
>>
>> Chenjun Tang