Patent ID: 7822257

Claim:
An observation apparatus comprising: an illumination unit that illuminates a specimen; an imaging unit that images an imaging area of the specimen to generate an observation image; a moving unit that moves the specimen with respect to the imaging unit; an information obtaining unit that obtains position specifying information for specifying an area position of the imaging area with respect to the imaging unit; a storage unit that stores the observation image and the area position in association with each other; a movement controller that controls the moving unit to move the specimen so that a new area position specified by a new position specifying information item obtained by the information obtaining unit is within an imaging range of the imaging unit; a matching unit that, when the new area position is within the imaging range, compares the new area position with the area position stored in the storage unit to determine whether the new area position is already stored in the storage unit; an imaging controller that, when the new area position is not vet stored in the storage unit, controls the imaging unit to image a new imaging area corresponding to the new area position to generate a new observation image, and stores the new observation image in the storage unit as the observation image stored in the storage unit; a position storing controller that, when the imaging controller stores the new observation image in the storage unit, stores the new area position in the storage unit as the area position stored in the storage unit; and an illumination controller that controls the illumination unit to illuminate the specimen only during an imaging period when the imaging unit images the imaging area.