Patent ID: 8643946

Claim:
A microscope comprising: a microscope beam path; an objective having a focal plane located within a sample volume; and an autofocus device, the autofocus device including a light modulator that generates a luminous, two-dimensional, intensity-modulated modulation object, autofocus illumination optics, which comprise a beam splitter located, such that the autofocus illumination optics images the luminous two-dimensional, intensity-modulated modulation object via the beam splitter to form an image of the modulation object in the sample volume such that the two-dimensional, intensity-modulated modulation object's two dimensional image is located in the focal plane of the objective and in a central portion of the field of the objective, and wherein the beam splitter couples the autofocus illumination optics with the microscope beam path; an autofocus camera that records a two-dimensional image of the two dimensional, intensity-modulated modulation object, said camera having a camera image plane; and autofocus imaging optics, which image the luminous two dimensional intensity-modulated modulation object's image located in the sample volume into an autofocus image plane; wherein the camera is positioned such that the camera image plane is inclined relative to the autofocus image plane and intersects the autofocus image plane.