Patent ID: 7649686

Claim:
A box-type microscope apparatus, comprising: a microscope having a stage for placing a specimen vessel thereon, a transmitting illumination optical system, and an image forming optical system; a housing surrounding the microscope, the housing including a fixed housing and a moving housing provided to be openable, closable, and movable with respect to the fixed housing; a switching mechanism in which, of optical parts constituting the transmitting illumination optical system or the image forming optical system, at least partial optical parts arranged above the stage are provided to be movable so that when the moving housing is located at a position of an opened state with respect to the fixed housing, the partial optical parts are removed from an optical axis of a remaining optical system, while when the moving housing is located at a position of a closed state, an optical axis of the transmitting illumination optical system is aligned with an optical axis of the image forming optical system; specimen vessel positioning means for fixing the specimen vessel placed on the stage at a constant position of the stage; and positioning release means for actuating the specimen vessel positioning means when the moving housing is moved from the position of the opened state toward the position of the closed state with respect to the fixed housing and for releasing a positioning of the specimen vessel performed by the specimen vessel positioning means with respect to the stage when the moving housing is located at the position of the opened state with respect to the fixed housing.