Microscope apparatus

An image-capturing method performed at a microscope apparatus having:

• an illumination optical system that radiates activation light to activate some of fluorescent materials included in a sample and excitation light to excite at least some of the activated fluorescent materials;
• an image forming optical system that has an objective lens and an astigmatic optical system, which generates astigmatism to at least part of fluorescence from the fluorescent materials, and that forms an image of the fluorescence;
• an image-capturing unit that captures an image formed by the image forming optical system;
• and
• a drive unit that moves an image-capturing position in the sample along an optical axis-direction of the objective lens, the image-capturing method comprising:
• causing the image-capturing unit to capture images in a plurality of numbers of frames respectively at a first image-capturing position and at a second image-capturing position different from the first image-capturing position along the optical axis-direction such that images in a first number of frames at the first image-capturing position and images in a second number of frames different from the first number of frames at the second image-capturing position are captured,
• wherein the first number of frames and the second number of frames are identified by image-capturing conditions set before the image-capturing unit is caused to capture images at the first and second image-capturing positions.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing a computer program product having computer instructions that are executed by a computer to control a microscope apparatus having:

• an illumination optical system that radiates activation light to activate some of fluorescent materials included in a sample and excitation light to excite at least some of the activated fluorescent materials;
• an image forming optical system that has an objective lens and an astigmatic optical system, which generates astigmatism to at least part of fluorescence from the fluorescent materials, and that forms an image of the fluorescence;
• an image-capturing unit that captures an image formed by the image forming optical system;
• and
• a drive unit that moves an image-capturing position in the sample along an optical axis-direction of the objective lens, the computer instructions, upon being executed by the computer, enabling the computer to perform operations comprising:
• executing a procedure of causing the image-capturing unit to capture images in a plurality of numbers of frames respectively at a first image-capturing position and at a second image-capturing position different from the first image-capturing position along the optical axis-direction such that images in a first number of frames at the first image-capturing position and images in a second number of frames different from the first number of frames at the second image-capturing position are captured,
• wherein the first number of frames and the second number of frames are identified by image-capturing conditions set before the image-capturing unit is caused to capture images at the first and second image-capturing positions.