Patent ID: 7816126

Claim:
A culture observation apparatus, which is used for observing a cultured cell while culturing the cell, comprising: a culture device that forms a culture space which is controlled to be an environment suitable for culturing the cultured cell; a sample tray that holds a container for housing the cultured cell and a culture medium, the sample tray being removable from the culture space together with the container housing the cultured cell for exchanging the culture medium; a microscope for observing the cultured cell; a tray holding mechanism that holds the sample tray in the culture space in a detachable manner with good reproducibility; and a shifting mechanism that relatively shifts the sample tray held by the tray holding mechanism and a light axis of the microscope along a plane that is orthogonal to the light axis, wherein the sample tray comprises a heater used for heating the sample tray at least when the sample tray is removed from the culture space together with the container housing the cultured cell for exchanging the culture medium, and wherein the sample tray is electrically connectable to an energy supplying unit that supplies energy to the sample tray.