Patent ID: 7931587

Claim:
An endoscope comprising: an illuminator that includes a light emitting surface for illuminating the inside of a living body; an objective optical system for forming an image of a specified object on one side of the objective optical system and illuminated by the illuminator, said objective optical system having an optical axis and an entrance pupil having a center on said optical axis; a transparent cover that encompasses the illuminator and said one side of the objective optical system and that includes an outer surface; and a light shielding member, that shields a portion of the light emitted from said light emitting surface, is provided on said light emitting surface, said light shielding member does not pass any light rays that are incident on the light shielding member from said illuminator; wherein the following condition is satisfied: 10°≦α where α is the angle formed by a light ray having a wavelength of 546.07 nm that has been specularly reflected at a point on the outer surface of the transparent cover after being emitted perpendicularly as a light ray from the light emitting surface of the illuminator with a line drawn from said point on the external surface of the transparent cover to the center of the entrance pupil of the objective optical system.