Patent ID: 6980359

Claim:
A microscope system comprising: a stage on which an observation object is mountable; an objective lens for observing the observation object, said objective lens being movable in a direction of an optical axis; and a stage control section to control a relative movement of the stage and the objective lens, said stage control section comprising: a contact sensor provided at an objective lens side to generate a detection signal which depends on a contact amount between the objective lens and the observation object, and which includes one of an initial offset and an updated offset; a comparing section configured to compare the detection signal with a threshold value and to generate a contact signal when the detection signal is determined to be greater than the threshold value; a controlling mechanism configured to control the relative movement between the stage and the objective lens in response to the contact signal to prevent excessive contact between the observation object and the objective lens; an initial setting section configured to set the threshold value as the default threshold value at an initial time, in a setting state in which the observation object and the objective lens are separated from each other, said default threshold value corresponding to a sum of a predetermined pressure amount and the initial offset; and an updating section configured to determine whether the setting state is present each time a predetermined time elapses, and if the setting state is present: (i) to maintain the threshold value as the default threshold value when the detection signal corresponds to the initial offset in the setting state, and (ii) to set the threshold value to be an updated threshold value when the detection signal corresponds to the updated offset in the setting state, said updated threshold value corresponding to a sum of the predetermined pressure amount and the updated offset.