Patent ID: 7369309

Claim:
A confocal microscope, comprising: an illumination section which concentrates illumination light to each of a target point and one or more non-target points of a specimen for simultaneous illumination, each non-target point being adjacent to the target point, the target point and adjacent non-target points being arranged at intervals too narrow to maintain a confocal effect; a light reception section which receives light entering into a light reception portion conjugate with the target point, without distinguishing between emitted lights from the target and non-target points under illumination by said illumination section, and which outputs a light reception signal in accordance with an intensity of the received light; a control section which controls said illumination section and thereby changes illumination of a number of the non-target points successively, and which receives light reception signals which are output from said light reception section before and after the change in the number of the non-target points; and a generation section which generates a confocal signal in accordance with an intensity of light emitted from the target point, based on a relationship between a plurality of the light reception signals and the changed number of non-target points.