Patent ID: 7977616

Claim:
A microscope equipped with an automatic focusing mechanism, comprising: an observation light source; an objective lens for focusing first light emitted from the observation light source on an object to be detected; an observation optical system for imaging the first light which is reflected by the object to be detected and passes through the objective lens; and a focal-point detector for detecting a positional shift of the object to be detected from a focal position of the objective lens, wherein the focal-point detector includes a focal-point detection light source for emitting focal-point detection light serving as second light, an area sensor on which is focused the focal-point detection light that is emitted from the focal-point detection light source, that is focused on the object to be detected via the objective lens, and that returns via the objective lens upon reflection at the object to be detected, and a region setting unit which can set an in-focus assessable region of the focal-point detection light acquired by the area sensor to any position on the area sensor, wherein the region setting unit includes a memory that stores photoreceptor data on the area sensor surface, and wherein the region setting unit performs analysis computations on the photoreceptor data in the memory so as to assess an in-focus state of the focal-point detection light.