Patent ID: 8284246

Claim:
A microscope system which changes observation states by driving various optical members, the microscope system comprising: an image pickup unit for picking up an image of a sample; a display unit for displaying an image picked up by the image pickup unit; a hardware history record unit for recording history data related to a microscope operation history, wherein the history data relates to a microscope state at a time of changing the microscope state and includes data indicating what change has been made to the microscope state, and wherein the history record unit records image data representing the image of the sample picked up by the image pickup unit and synchronously records the history data and the image data; a selection unit for selecting at least one microscope operation item from among a plurality of microscope operation items; and a state reproduction unit for reproducing a microscope state based on (i) the at least one microscope operation item selected by the selection unit, and (ii) the history data recorded in the history record unit; wherein the state reproduction unit causes the display unit to simultaneously display a plurality of images of the sample corresponding to a plurality of pieces of the image data recorded in the history record unit, selects one image from among the plurality of simultaneously displayed images, and reproduces a microscope state to which an observation state is changed based on the selected image; and wherein the history data relating to the microscope operation history is cleared after a return position at which the microscope state is reproduced.